


Just Pretending

by thereluctanthufflepuff



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, First War with Voldemort, Hogwarts, Inspired by To All The Boys I've Loved Before, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 91,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28039962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thereluctanthufflepuff/pseuds/thereluctanthufflepuff
Summary: Lily Evans keeps her feelings hidden away in her treasured journals. When they mysteriously fall into the wrong hands, how much can she really hide? And what's the deal with that surprising James Potter?
Relationships: Lily Evans/James Potter, Lily Evans/Severus Snape, Sirius Black/Marlene McKinnon
Comments: 37
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author Notes: I wrote this chapter in five days after having this idea knocking around in my head for over two years from watching & reading To All The Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han. I love the story, and I love Lily and James. Please read and review! (Also, if you're interested in beta reading for this story, please message me!)
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, and I'm not making any money from this work. These characters and this setting belongs to JKR.

**_Chapter 1_ **

… _and I can’t believe that she’s already marrying him! It’s ridiculous—she’s only nineteen. And he’s soooo dull. I’m better off not—_

“Lil? Hellooo? Earth to Lily Evans?”

Lily sighs, putting down her quill, and looking across the table at her best friend, Marlene.

“Yes?” she says, smiling at sweetly as she can muster in spite of her foul mood.

“Have you heard a word I’ve said all evening?” Marlene says, narrowing her eyes and glaring at Lily. She turns to Mary. “She’s always buried in that”—she points accusingly—“that _thing!”_

“She’s right, Lil. Aren’t we a little old for diaries? What’re you writing in there anyway?” Mary reaches across the table to grab it, but Lily slams it shut quickly, stowing it away in her school bag where it’s safe from her friends’ prying.

“It’s not a _diary,”_ Lily says defensively. “It’s a journal!”

They both roll their eyes. Lily ignores them, turning her attention to Marlene. “Now what is so important?”

“I was _saying,”_ Marlene says importantly, “that since you’re doing room assignments for the Stonehenge trip, put me and Black together.”

Now it’s Lily’s turn to roll her eyes. Since their fifth year, Marlene had nursed an intense crush on Sirius Black, the most handsome and immature boy in their year, and perhaps the whole school. She’s not alone—most of the girls—and some of the boys—at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has at least noticed Black’s roguish good looks, the way he struts about the castle like he owns the place, and his juvenile pranks that everyone just laughs at. Lily doesn’t see it, personally.

“Marlie, you know I can’t do that,” she says, spearing a roasted potato with her fork. “Plus, he’ll be with all his prat mates. It’s not like I can put you and him together _alone._ ” She gestures down the long Gryffindor table at the objects of her abuse. As expected, Black is goading Pettigrew to stuff his face with roasted potatoes, using his wand to expand Pettigrew’s cheeks to accommodate even more potatoes. The other two Marauders, because that’s what they call themselves for Merlin knows what reason, are laughing alongside Black, Remus Lupin looking a bit more concerned for Pettigrew choking than James Potter, who seems engrossed in ensuring Pettigrew’s success. “And you’ll be with us.”

“Pfft, you’re no fun,” Marlene huffs.

“What’s the point of being friends with the Head Girl anyway?” Mary laments, shaking her head dramatically. “Especially one who has no interest in helping her friends get snogged.”

“Neither of you needs my help to get snogged,” Lily replies tartly. “You’re both gorgeous, and any boy at this school would be lucky to have you. I just don’t know why you like Black—he’s a git, just like—“

“Potter!” Mary and Marlene chorused together, knowing Lily far too well for her own liking.

Lily stares at them, then dissolves into laughter. They join her, the three seventh-year girls shaking with mirth until tears run down their cheeks. Lily catches James Potter’s eye, who looks at her quizzically before turning back to Pettigrew and patting him vigorously on the back as he had, indeed, started to choke.

When they’ve collected themselves, Marlene says, wiping the tears from her eyes, “If Lily had a boyfriend, she’d understand our predicament, Mare.”

“I _do_ understand your predicament!” Lily insists. “It’s just—my hands are tied on the trip. Professor Dumbledore trusts me to be responsible, and I need his recommendation for the Auror Academy. You both know that! I have to be on best behavior.”

“Maybe Potter will take us seriously, Mar,” Mary says, jerking her thumb toward the Marauders, who were now hunched around a large piece of parchment secretively, Potter’s stolen snitch hovering animatedly above their heads.

“Don’t even think about it!” Marlene screeches. “He’s Black’s best friend—he’ll tell him right away.”

“Isn’t that what you want?” Lily asks innocently. “I can put in a good word for you if you want. Though I’m not sure Potter would let Black go that easily.”

Marlene shoots a look at Lily like she wants her to be subject to a dozen Bat Bogey Hexes. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Lily holds both her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “You got it. Mum’s the word.”

Mary sighs. “All the same, wouldn’t it be nice for us to have a few good snogs before we graduate next summer? I haven’t snogged anyone since last spring when I kissed Tommy Wood before graduation.”

“Oh, have you heard from Tommy at all?” Lily said, perking up at the mention of their old friend—and Mary’s old flame—who had graduated over the summer. “How’s his Quidditch recruitment faring?”

“Yes, he wrote me over the summer, telling me all about how he’s meeting all kinds of new girls at training camp,” Mary replies dully, dropping her chin into her hand and looking very glum indeed.

“Tosser!” Marlene mutters, patting Mary reassuringly on the back and giving Lily pointed look.

Lily sighs. “Sorry, Mare.” Mary reaches across the table and gives Lily’s hand a squeeze, reassuring Lily that she hadn’t spoken out of turn, and that they weren’t going to have a row over Lily’s supposed insensitivity.

“You’d know never to ask if you’d ever had a boyfriend,” Marlene says rudely. “You never ask a girl about her ex-boyfriend, Lil!”

Lily flushes a deep crimson at these words, her face flaming with embarrassment. Because Marlene is right. At the ripe young age of seventeen, Lily Evans had never had a real boyfriend. Never had she felt more aware of it until right this moment, with her two friends staring at her expectantly, and she unable—no, unwilling—to do anything to help them get boyfriends of their own.

 _But they don’t know how I feel_ , Lily thinks, watching at Mary chides Marlene over her callousness. _They don’t know about my journals._

She thinks about the three journals stacked inside her school trunk, each dedicated to a different boy that she had obsessed over enough where she filled an entire journal with her innermost thoughts and feelings about them. Once she had filled her first love journal back in second year, she had tied it with a gold ribbon and tucked it away deep into her trunk, feeling at once freed by her ability to write the very same feelings she couldn’t express to anyone. She felt released of her feelings, so powerful when they were inside her, clawing to come out, and yet, when she wrote everything down, everything seemed to make sense again. She could move through her days without wondering if the boy she liked could smell her in the Amortentia they were supposed to be brewing in Potions class. She could go to Hogsmeade with her friends without wondering if he’d wanted to ask her to go with him. She could write down everything she felt—the sadness, the joy, the overwhelming sensation when he touched her shoulder—and then put it away and feel completely like herself afterwards.

The journals held a key piece of her. When she harbored a deep, all-encompassing crush, those feelings threatened to overwhelm her, and keeping her journals kept her, well, sane. She never told anyone about them, not even Mary and Marlene, her best friends and fellow Gryffindors since their very first day of school. The two girls thought that, as far as Lily was concerned, Lily had never _ever_ thought about a boy, let alone had such a deep, intense crush on three different ones that she had filled pages and pages with her most private ruminations on their hands.

“Sorry, Lil,” Marlene says, offering Lily an apologetic look. “I just want you to have a little fun this year. It being our last year and all.”

“It’s okay, Marlie,” Lily replies with a smile, offering her apology freely and without any terms attached. “I’ll have plenty of fun this year with you two. Our last year at Hogwarts—we can get up to plenty of trouble this year without boys!”

“Do my ears deceive me? Is _Evans_ planning on finally getting into trouble this year?” Lily whirls around to see James Potter grinning at her. “What are you going to do, Evans? Not be perfect at Potions? Let the prefects snog on their rounds?”

“Y’know, Potter,” Lily says, glaring at him. “You should try to stay _out_ of trouble this year for a change. No one would know what to think.”

He grins again, shoving his hands in his pockets sheepishly. “Speaking of, it’s time for the prefects’ meeting, Evans. I know you forgot with all this talk of getting into trouble without boys—“ He paused, looking down at her. Then his eyes went mockingly wide. “Oh! Is missing the prefects’ meeting part of the brand new Evans? Watch out everyone—Evan’s turning over a newer, naughtier leaf.”

Lily hears Marlene’s laugh from behind her, but ignores her. “I wouldn’t joke about me missing the prefects’ meeting if I were you, Potter,” Lily says warningly, standing up from her seat and slinging her schoolbag over one shoulder. “Otherwise, you may actually have to do some work.”

James clutched his chest dramatically. “You wound me Evans! You know I planned the next Hogsmeade weekend! Give me some credit.”

Lily looks at Marlene and Mary, waving in a lackluster sort of way. “See you after the meeting.” They wave at her with mischievous looks in their eyes, turning back to one another to no doubt discuss their woeful lack of boyfriends and Lily’s complete disinterest in the topic at hand. Lily falls in step next to Potter, walking out of the Great Hall and up the main staircase, heading to the fourth floor classroom that they used for prefects’ meetings.

“You know, Evans, if you need someone to show you how to get in trouble—“ Potter starts to say.

“I’ll ask you if I never need lessons on how to be a complete and total git, Potter,” Lily replies, her tone sharp but a small smile played impishly around her lips.

Potter opened his mouth to reply, but a clear voice rang across the room like a siren, interrupting his train of thought.

“James!”

Someone had called Potter’s name, and Lily had to bite back a groan as she turned around to see who it was.

Hestia Jones was standing at the bottom of the staircase, her hand on her hip, which she had stuck out suggestively. Potter grinned, starting to jog down the stairs to meet Hestia, who smiled back at him, the smile lighting up her entire bloody gorgeously symmetrical face.

“Hold up, Evans,” Potter says carelessly over his shoulder, the grin permanently plastered to his face now as he leans down and gives Hestia a kiss, her arm looping around his neck. Lily tried her hardest not to roll her eyes, opting instead to stare directly at a pair of nervous first years as they pored over what appeared to be a map.

 _Ugh, Hestia,_ Lily thinks scornfully. Her former friend. Her dormmate still. Once upon a time, the trio of Lily, Mary, and Marlene had included Hestia and her friend, Alice. The five girls had been inseparable, and Hestia and Lily had been the closest among them, both opting for the other’s company, each a complement to the other in more ways than one. While Lily kept her feelings in, opting to write them instead of talking about them, Hestia wore her heart on her sleeve. Lily was talented at Potions and Charms, while Hestia favored the more analytical subjects, Transfiguration and Arithmancy. Lily was Muggleborn, and Hestia showed her the ropes of the magical world.

But then Potter happened.

Since the first day of school, Hestia had harbored a massive and very apparent crush on James Potter, a crush that was obvious to everyone except Potter himself. Hestia went out of her way to run into Potter in the corridors, memorized his library schedule so she could study near him, and even took notes for him in class when he landed himself in the Hospital Wing more than once. Lily, Mary, and Marlene were more than happy to encourage Hestia in her pursuit of Potter, hoping at some point that he would notice and reciprocate her feelings. But that hadn’t happened.

Instead, beginning in their fifth year, Potter began to pursue Lily with a single-minded determination that didn’t go unnoticed by anyone at the school, least of all Hestia. He asked her out every chance he got, publicly and privately. He bribed other students to let him sit next to Lily in lessons, he sent her a singing telegram on her birthday which may have been the most mortifying moment of Lily’s life until that point, he wrote her notes with “Will you go out with me? Check yes or no” written on them, dropping them surreptitiously on her desk as he walked by with Hestia in full view. Lily tried to ignore it, ducking out of sight when he approached, and studiously avoiding discussing the matter with Hestia, who had started similarly avoiding Lily by leaving their dormitory early and returning late, avoiding her three best friends during mealtimes.

Until the week of their O.W.L. exams. Lily cringed thinking back on that week, remembering how Potter had looked at her as he held Severus Snape upside down in the air, asking her out over and over in front of what felt like the whole school until Snape had called her that dreaded word. Severus, whom she had loved, calling her “Mudblood,” the word ringing in her ears as she had fled, racing up the stairs as tears coursed down her cheeks to find Hestia in the Gryffindor common room, her stony face showing not an ounce of sympathy for Lily.

“You knew I liked him!” Hestia had yelled at Lily. “I’ve liked him since first year!”

“I don’t know why he’s doing this,” Lily had cried, pleading with Hestia to understand. “I don’t want him. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I can’t help it! I don’t know how to—“

But Hestia had turned her back on Lily that day, storming out of their dormitory and slamming the door behind her, and they hadn’t had a single meaningful conversation after that. That night, Lily had found Potter in the common room alone, and she knew he had been waiting for her to come down.

“Evans—“ he had said, shoving his hands in his pockets as he gulped nervously. “Evans, I’m so—“

“Listen,” Lily had said tersely, and he had tried to interrupt her. “Wait, I want to talk right now. Let me talk.” He looked down at her now, his face unreadable. “I want you to leave me alone, Potter. I don’t like you at all, let alone like _that_ ,” Lily had said. “I meant what I said today. You’re an arrogant, bullying, toerag, and I will never _ever_ like you that way. Ever. Do you understand?” He had nodded. “You lost me my friends,” Lily had said, a sob breaking through her words. “Just leave me alone.” He had obliged after that, speaking to her only to discuss schoolwork, and this fall, their Head Boy and Girl duties.

And then, right at the start of sixth year, after Lily, Mary, and Marlene had spent the summer not speaking to Hestia and Hestia not speaking to them, Hestia and Potter had shown up to school hand in hand, snogging in every isolated corner they could find, walking each other to class, studying in the library together, going to Hogsmeade on dates. Hestia cheered for Potter during Quidditch matches, racing down to the pitch when the games were over to jump into his arms, wearing his name on her shirt to impress him. She laughed when he made jokes, and she spent all her time now with his mates, sympathizing with them as they served detention after detention for all the mischief they got into. Potter and his mates were as immature as ever until last term, shortly before the Easter holidays, when something decidedly changed in the Marauders, and especially in Potter.

There were the rumors, of course, that Black and Snape had dueled, and Black had nearly killed Severus in the process. But Severus wasn’t in the hospital wing, and none of the Marauders would say a word. Potter became more serious and reserved, and Lily noticed the change in him before it seemed anyone else did. True, he was still gregarious and mischievous, but he had spent the rest of the spring term studying for his exams and on his best behavior, which became even more noticeable when he approached Lily one evening to ask her for her help in Potions.

“What’s this about, Potter?” she had asked suspiciously, and he had held out his hands in front of him in a gesture of surrender.

“You’re just the best at Potions,” he had said. “And I need top marks if I’m going to apply for the Auror Academy.”

Lily had scoffed, but helped him nonetheless, not caring if Hestia was watching her teach Potter how to brew a superior antidote. That’s when Lily Evans started her third and final love journal—about James Potter. She wrote about how she had noticed how he’d changed. She wrote about how, even though she thought he was a bully all those years, he always defended her against the pureblood mania that was spreading like Fiendfyre across their school. She wrote about how she’d noticed how kind he was to Hestia, how eager he was to learn about Potions from Lily, what a wonderful friend he was, how good he was at Quidditch, how tall he’d gotten, and how Lily wished that she could go back in time and say yes to him when he first asked her out.

When she’d filled that journal, she felt liberated. She put her feelings into the journal, tied the journal up with a gold ribbon, and put it away in her trunk. When she looked at Potter now, she felt nothing akin to the intense feelings she’d felt before. She felt…completely normal around him. The journals were just like that for her—a bit like magic.

Now she’s watching as James talked in a low voice to Hestia, whose brow is furrowed in an expression that Lily can’t read. Hestia replies to James, something sharp, and James checks his watch, then turns to look at Lily apologetically, who suddenly feels embarrassed that she’s waiting for him. She turns to climb the stairs, and is nearly to the fourth floor classroom when she hears Potter jogging lightly behind her.

“Wait up, Evans!” Potter huffs, falling into step next to her.

“Sorry,” Lily replies, not certain that she _is_ sorry. “That looked private.”

Potter looks embarrassed now, ducking his head so Lily can’t see his expression. “It’s nothing.” But years of being around Potter assures that it’s not nothing. She opens her mouth to speak, then thinks better of it and resolves to write it down in the Potter journal later that evening.

They enter the classroom and both take seats behind the enormous oak desk in front of the smattering of desks that in moments, Hogwarts prefects would occupy.

“Have you thought about doing room assignments for the seventh year trip yet?” Potter asks, pulling out a roll of parchment from his bag and a quill.

“A bit,” Lily replies. “Don’t you think it’s too early?”

“Never hurts to be prepared.”

Lily goggles at him. “Okay, who _are_ you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—“ Lily gestures toward him. “I remember a Potter who would do his Charms essay the hour before class started and who was late to more than his fair share of Dueling Club meetings!”

“Evans, are you ever going notice that I’m a changed man?” he replies, his face serious but a kind of teasing look in his eyes. “You’re the only person who still thinks I’m the same idiot who followed you around like a sick puppy all of fifth year.”

Lily rolls her eyes. “You may have the whole school fooled, Potter, but nothing gets past me.”

Potter laughs now, glancing over as the prefects start trickling in. “I’ll convince you, Evans. Just you wait.”

Once all the prefects were seated, Lily clears her throat. “Okay, I suppose I’ll start. I’m now calling this prefect meeting to order.”

This is how these meetings usually went. Lily handed out the new revised patrol schedule, reviewing all the incidents that had been reported by the prefects over the last two weeks, and ensuring that patrols were being done in pairs in case there was ever a need for a prefect to run to get a teacher. Remus Lupin, ever a dutiful prefect and best mate to Potter, always asks a question that makes Potter look good.

“…and finally,” Lily says as the hour nears its end, “please take extra precautions on Halloween, which two Mondays from today. We’ve scheduled for all the prefects, myself, and Potter to be on rounds that evening. I’ll brew some Sobering Solution for everyone to take on their rounds. No doubt students will be drinking quite heavily that evening and sneaking out after hours. If anyone is quite sick, please take them to the Hospital Wing and make a report to their Head of House.” She turns to Potter. “Anything else you’d like to add?”

Potter grins. “As a matter of fact, I do—“

“ _Tuh_.” A rude sound came from one of the prefects, and Lily looks up to see Severus Snape staring hatefully at Potter.

“Have something to say, Sniv—I mean, Snape?” Potter asks coolly, his brown eyes fixed on Severus’s own black ones.

Snape’s lip curls in a way that Lily recognizes quite easily given that she has known Snape since she they were children, that she considered him her best friend at one time, and that she had loved him enough to also draft an entire journal filled with everything she had felt when they had been friends, and then, when everything went to hell, everything she had felt after what he’d done, how when he’d called her that filthy word, he’d broken her heart. _And what I hate most_ , she had written, _is how I would take you back in an instant if you’d just stop being like them._

“No,” Snape replies to Potter’s taunt. “Just surprised that you’ve managed to do some of the Head Boy duties this time. There’s a first time for everything.”

“Yeah, there is,” James sneers at Snape. “Don’t worry, Snape. Your first time will come soon enough. I’m sure a girl out there will—“

Lily clears her throat loudly, interrupting whatever unkind jab Potter was about to lob back at Snape. The Head Boy glances at her, then ducks his head momentarily. “Right—“ he starts again. “Evans and I will be doing the room assignments for the Stonehenge trip before the next prefect meeting. Any special requests can be directed to me or her, and no—“ he looks pointedly as Dawn Shacklebolt opens her mouth to ask a question “—we won’t be putting boyfriends and girlfriends in the same rooms, so don’t even ask.”

“Can we be with our mates at least?” Alison Lee, a seventh-year Ravenclaw prefect asks.

Lily nods alongside Potter. “We’ll do our best to get you in the same room as your friends,” Lily reassures Alison. She glances around the room. “Anything else?” Everyone shakes their heads, starting to gather their bags, and move around. “Okay, well…then this meeting is adjourned.”

The prefects file out in small groups as Lily packs up her bag, carefully placing her journal back into the front pocket of her torn old school bag, resolving to finish what she had been writing about her horrible sister, Petunia, when she finished her Transfiguration essay that evening. When she had finally packed up, she swung her eyes up to find herself face to face with Severus Snape.

She gulps, taking a step back, and looking around. The classroom is empty. All the prefect and Potter are gone, and _how_ did she come to be in this situation _now?_ She mentally berates herself for allowing her guard to be lowered, her thoughts preoccupied with Petunia and the disastrous mess that was happening back home in Cokeworth.

“Uh, hi,” she says in a low voice. “Did you, um, need something?”

Severus looks eager, trying to tamp down his thrill to finally have caught her alone. “Just wondering if you’d like to work on Slughorn’s project together,” he asks haltingly. “You know the, er, Veritaserum practical and essay.”

“I, er—“ she fumbles for words, looking around. “I—can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because—“

But at that moment, Potter bounds back into the classroom. “Sorry, Evans, I forgot my qu—“ His eyes narrow when he sees Snape standing across from Lily with the desk that Potter had sat at moments before. His eyes flick between Lily and Snape, unsubtly trying to gauge the situation into which he had walked. “You alright, Evans?”

“What?” Lily breathes. “Yes, I’m fine. I was just telling Sev—I mean, Severus. I mean, Snape…” She trails off, lost for words.

“Why you can’t do the Potions practical with me,” Severus prompts, looking at her now with so much expectation—and was that _longing?_ —that Lily had to look away for a moment so she wouldn’t pitch forward into his arms.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Potter replies, strolling up to the desk to collect his quill. “It’s because I asked her to do the Potions practical with me. Ready to get our truth on, Evans?”

Lily stares for a moment at Potter, his soft brown eyes and untidy black hair and slightly slanted smile, and realizes what’s happening with a start: _Potter was rescuing her._

“Yes, that’s right.” Lily looks over at Snape now, whose lip is curling again at Potter’s mere presence. “Yes, Potter and I are partnered together already. You know, being Heads and all.”

“Must be nice, Potter,” Snape snarls, striding out of the room now. “Never had to be prefect. Guess it pays to be Dumbledore’s favorite boy.” He spits the rest of the words out and whirls away. Shaking his head, Potter turns to Lily.

“Evans?” he says, inquiring in gentle way that Lily didn’t think him capable of, which surprises her. “You alright?”

She looks down at her hands for a moment, and then back up at Potter. “Th—thank you.”

Potter sighs, stowing his quill away before looking back up at Lily. “You’re not still hanging about with Snivellus are you?”

“What? No. Not after—well, _you_ know, of all people, I mean—“

“I remember.”

“I just meant, thank you for, er, helping me. You didn’t have to. I’ll find another partner for the practical, it’s alright. I think Benjy doesn’t have a partner yet—“

“For Merlin’s sake, just be my partner, Evans!” Potter huffs, canting his head toward the doorway, and they begin walking.

“I thought you’d be with—“

“Nah, she’s with Alice,” Potter replies easily. “Plus, just between us, Potions isn’t her strongest subject. And you _know_ how I need top marks to get into the Auror Academy—you can help me.”

“Oh?” Lily tilts her head now as they start up the spiraling staircase that leads to Gryffindor Tower. “And how are _you_ going to help _me,_ Potter?”

“You’ll find some way to remedy this situation. You are the--” and now he takes on a deep Scottish brogue “--brightest witch in our year, after all.” They both laugh now, partly because of how he said it—exactly like Professor McGonagall, right down to the deep sense of pride in the voice and the way he lifted his chin exactly like their Head of House and Transfiguration professor. Lily feels her stomach twinge a bit, and realizes for the briefest moment that she’s actually having fun with Potter, and then her stomach twists guiltily.

“Won’t Hestia be angry at you for partnering with me in Potions?”

Potter barely misses a step as they continue their ascent, but he does almost miss it, stumbling a bit but catching himself with the agility that comes with being an athlete. Lily pretends not to notice as Potter ponders her question with a kind of care she had started noticing in him last spring. He opens his mouth, closes it quickly, and then speaks.

“She’s pretty much angry at me all the time these days anyway.”

Lily tries not to gape, but she can already tell she’s not having much success because Potter looks at her face and starts to laugh again. “ _What?”_ he says, rubbing the back of his neck shyly. Has she ever seen him shy? She can’t remember. She’ll have to check her journal to be sure.

“I’m just—I’m just surprised!” Lily sputters indignantly. “You’re like…the king and queen of Hogwarts.”

“It’s not that simple,” Potter says quietly now, and Lily sobers quickly. “It’s more complicated than that. I—“ he glances at Lily again “—I _care_ about her, you know? But sometimes I think she…” He pauses. “She just wants to have a laugh all the time.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re the greatest prankster this school has ever seen then.”

“Oh, Evans.” Potter smiles. “You don’t know me at all, do you?”

They’ve reached the Fat Lady’s portrait now, and Potter gives the password (“doxy dung!”). Before Lily can reply, the portrait swings open and Potter clambers inside, greeting by raucous yells that tells Lily that his friends have summoned him and that their conversation is over. She climbs into the common room, too, and is cheered to see Mary and Marlene waving her down from a corner table.

“Where have you _been_?” Mary hisses as Lily sets her bag down and plops into an empty chair. “The other prefects were back ages ago.”

“Oh, I just—got caught up.”

“With _Potter?”_ Marlene looks at Lily slyly, who shakes her head.

“No. With, er—Snape.”

They look affronted. “ _Him?!”_ Mary cries.

“Shhhh! It was nothing.”

“Are you hanging about with him again?” Marlene demands. “Have you made up? I know he still likes you! No one would care if you spoke to him again.” This was true. While the whole school knew that Potter and his mates had bullied Snape mercilessly that day down by the lake, humiliated him beyond words, and possibly scarred him for life, fewer people knew that Snape had called Lily a slur of the absolute worst kind, and therefore, it would be a nonissue as far as school gossip went if Lily and Snape decided to mend their rift.

But only two people knew that the day _before_ that godawful day down by lake, Lily Evans and Severus Snape had kissed in the Potions dungeon for the first time, and that it had felt to Lily at the time that her life couldn’t get much better than that. She loved a boy and what unbelievable luck! He loved her back! She had even said, “I love you,” to Severus right after their kiss, and he’d said it back, so gently and with so much care that Lily couldn’t imagine he would ever be capable of hurting her to the extent which he did only one day later.

“You know he’s a--” Mary lowers her voice dramatically. “ _Death Eater.”_

 _“Shhhhh!”_ Lily hisses. “Shut up!”

“What? It’s not exactly a secret…”

“It’s not true,” Lily says, impressed with how easily lying suddenly came to her. What else could she lie about? “He told me himself.”

“Of _course_ he told _you_ that, he knows you’d _never_ speak to him again if he were one.” Marlene rolls her eyes at Lily, and Lily has the sudden urge to smack Marlene upside the head.

“I already don’t speak to him. Anyway, how would you even know if he _were_?” Lily says quietly, not wanting to be overheard. “It’s not like they’re open about it.”

“Lil, this is the problem with you--” Marlene starts to say, then her eyes narrow in the direction of the fireplace. “Well, doesn’t she look smarmy?”

Lily turns to see Hestia approach Potter and his mates at the other end of the common room. She looks almost...pleased about something. Nothing at all like how Potter had characterized her earlier on the staircase. Potter stands up now, and follows Hestia, putting his hand in hers, out of the common room.

“Use protection!” Sirius Black shouts before the portrait swings shut again, and the whole common room explodes into laughter.

Lily turns to Marlene. “Really, Marlie? That’s the one you want me to set you up with? _That_ one?”

Marlene beams.

* * *

Later that night, Lily lies in her four-poster in the tower dormitory, her mind going a mile a minute. Her day had felt strange, and she couldn’t pinpoint why except that she’d seen both Severus _and_ Potter today, and everything felt very jumbled in her brain all of a sudden. What had Potter meant when he said Hestia was just looking for a laugh all the time? And _why_ , after all this time, had Severus asked Lily to work with him again?

She sighs, looking around the circular room. All the other beds have their curtains drawn except for Mary’s, who slept peacefully on her side, her slow, steady breathing lifting the blanket. A sliver of moonlight had fallen over Mary’s face, and Lily thinks for a moment that she had never seen Mary look so lovely. This was one of Lily’s favorite times of the day, and she would remember them well in the years to come. She smiles sadly, remembering that she only has a few more months of sleeping in the bed next to Mary’s in this room where she met these people that she loved with every fiber of her being.

For a moment, Lily hesitates, but then, as quietly as she can, she moves her covers and slips out of bed, the skin on her bare legs goosepimpling immediately at the slight chill in the air. She creeps to the foot of her four-poster bed, where her large maroon trunk lives. With utmost care, she unlatches the trunk and gingerly opens the lid, peeking into it’s messy interior. In her classes, Lily might seem like the neat and tidy Head Girl, but here, in the dormitory where she’s spent seven years, she let her true self show. Her dirty school clothes are scattered across the carpet, and she knows that when she opens the trunk, she’ll have to dig through old quills, rolls of parchment, other books, her backup cauldron, and the debris of seven years of things that she never once bothered to remove. Slowly, with one hand holding open the lid, she reaches the other hand into the trunk, and after a few minutes of rummaging, she finds them. When she feels their smooth, slim spines, she smiles. She knows which one she’s looking for by the feel of it, and she pulls the journal out silently, carefully letting the lid of the trunk drop without a sound. In an afterthought, she stuffs her dirty school clothes in the trunk in a halfhearted attempt to neaten her living space.

Once in bed and quill in hand, she waves her wand and the curtains around her four-poster are drawn, hiding Mary’s sleeping form from her view. With a slight hitch in her breath, she smooths the dark green cover open, spying the _James Potter_ she had written on the inside cover, and begins to read the first page.

 _Dear James,_ it started. She stares. The handwriting is hers, with the looping J, but she feels so far removed from the idea of calling Potter “James” that she has to bite her lip to keep a laugh from spilling out.

_I noticed you today. I bet that would make you feel weird if you ever read it. I never used to notice you, but then today, I did. I saw that Peter was struggling to transfigure his teacup into a rat, and you helped him. You did it without him even having to ask. Have you always done that or am I just noticing it now because it’s so different from how you used to act?_

_I watched as you helped Hestia after her bag split and ink got all over her parchment. Do you remember when she got that bad mark in Charms last week? I do, but only because I saw you encourage her and offer to help her with her homework. Are you good at Charms? I realize now that even though I’ve known you for all these years, I barely know anything about you other than that at one time I found you to be the most bullying bully to ever exist at this school._

_Lately, I’ve been watching you, and you’re different. You go someplace when you’re not around your mates and you think no one is watching you. Where do you go? Can I come, too?_

Lily stares at her words, her heart thudding lightly in her chest. She wrote these words just last spring, when she’d noticed how different Potter was. She turns the pages until she finds an empty one, and starts to write.

_Dear James…_

She writes and writes, filling up not one or two, but three full pages before she leans back against her soft pillows, breathing lightly. Her mind feels open and clear. She feels….nothing. Contentedly, she closes the journal, replacing the gold ribbon on it, and slips down into the covers again, her fingers stained with ink but her mind blissfully blank. She falls asleep in moments.

It feels like she’s awoken by Marlene’s scream only moments later.

“There is a _rat_ in this blasted dormitory!” she’s yelling, and that sets the others off, all of them bounding back into their beds, screaming. Lily gropes under her pillow for her wand, waved it, and her bedcurtains slid back rather violently. Sure enough, Marlene is standing on her bed, Mary is cowering under the covers, Hestia is trying not to look scared, but failing as she tentatively reaches a toe back down to the floor, and Alice Byrne was looking rather bored as she stared at her ridiculous dormmates.

“What’s happening?” Lily says hoarsely. But they can’t hear her over their current histrionics. She clears her throat and tries again. “WHAT IS HAPPENING IN HERE?!”

The screaming halts for a moment while Marlene glances at Lily, and then points at the door. “I was just getting up to go to the loo when I saw a bloody huge rat cross the floor and leave under the door.” At this, she points accusingly at the door. The door is just a door and does nothing.

“So it’s gone?” Hestia mutters from her bed, and sets both her feet down on the carpeted floor. She wiggles her toes experimentally, and then strides across the dormitory into the girls’ loo.

“Hey!” Marlene shouts. “I needed that! I have to pee!”

Lily looks over at Mary, who is resisting the urge to laugh, and Lily bites her lip, knowing that if Mary laughs, Lily will burst into giggles as well and that will do simply nothing to improve Marlene’s already extraordinarily foul mood.

Later, when Marlene has had a pee and taken a shower and is in a much more jovial state, she’s applying her mascara as she asks, “Hey Lil, can I borrow that pink lipstick you wore at my mother’s Ministry thing?”

“Of course,” Lily replies, from where she’s rifling in the wardrobe to look for her polka dot stockings. “I think it’s in my nightstand.”

Marlene wander over to Lily’s bedside table, atop which sits piles of books, scattered quills, multiple discarded glasses of water all stacked together, and countless lipsticks. “How do you live like this?” Marlene mutters, yanking open the equally cluttered and chaotic drawer.

Lily rummages through her wardrobe and tugs out three pairs of stockings, and realizes that none of them are the ones that she wants. Huffing impatiently, she turns to face the room, announcing, “Hey, has anyone seen my—“

What she sees makes her heart plummet. Marlene is holding a slim, black book in her hands while Mary holds a gold ribbon, peering over Marlene’s shoulder. They’re both reading the book in silence, amazement on their faces. For one long moment, Lily watches as their eyes whiz side to side across the pages of the journal.

“WHAT—ARE—YOU—DOING?” she explodes, bounding across Mary’s bed and then her own, snatching the journal from Marlene’s hands and slamming it shut with a sharp _snap._ She grabs the ribbon from Mary furiously. “THAT—IS—PRIVATE!”

Mary and Marlene are staring at Lily, both their eyes bright and guilty. “ _You,”_ Marlene whispers. “ _You like—“_

“Quiet!” Lily hisses, looking around the dormitory for Hestia. But she had left moments ago with Alice close behind her. It was just Lily, Mary, and Marlene in the dormitory.

“I _always_ thought it would be _Snape,”_ Mary says aloud. “I never thought it would be—“

“SHHHHH!” Lily clutches the journal to her chest, her eyes blazing with rage and embarrassment. “SHUT. UP. Just. Shut up, Mary!”

Marlene then starts to laugh. “All this time!” she squeals. “All this time you were just writing…that?” She gestures toward the journal that Lily is now tying very securely with the gold ribbon.

“Marlene,” Lily pleads. “Marlene, you cannot tell anyone about this journal. Mary, you, too. It’s _private._ No one can know. No one.”

She can’t believe this. They read her _private words_. Words which were _private._ She felt her heart banging against her ribs, her stomach twisting with rage, and she drops the journal, burying her face in her hands, and sinks to the bed now, trying to hold back the angry tears that were threatening to spill out.

“Oh, _Lil,”_ she hears Mary say, and then feels Mary’s arms encircle her. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

Marlene also pats Lily’s shoulder, murmuring her own apologies. “Yeah,” she says. “I’m sorry! I just…”

“You just _what?”_ Lily snaps, looking up at Marlene now with a steely glint. Marlene reels back—she’s never seen that expression upon Lily’s normally warm, sweet face, and she gulps anxiously. “You just thought you could read my—my—that was private, Marlene!”

“I know, I know! I’m sorry! It’s just that you never—why didn’t you ever tell me?” Mary clears her throat, looking pointedly at Marlene. “I mean, why didn’t you ever tell _us?”_

“I—“ Lily racks her brain for a moment. Why hadn’t she told them? They were her best friends, and here she was, seventeen years old, and still keeping secrets from them. “It’s hard to explain, but. I don’t really.”

“Don’t really what?” Mary asks gently, now rubbing Lily’s back reassuringly.

“I don’t really _like_ him,” Lily says in a low voice.

“Wait—what?”

“What about what you wrote in the diary?”

“It’s a _journal,_ for your information!” Lily snaps again. “And it’s…complicated. I didn’t think you’d understand. I felt—confused by him. That’s all.”

“Lily, you wrote almost half a book filled with everything you feel about him!” Marlene interjects.

“Well, I was _very_ confused, now wasn’t I?”

The three girls exchange significant looks, and Lily can tell that Mary and Marlene are having a mental battle over who should speak first.

“Lily, if he knew—“ Mary starts.

“He mustn’t! Promise me you won’t tell him—or anyone. Promise me!”

“But Lily!” Marlene protests. “He is obsessed with you. If he knew for one second that you felt even a fraction of this way, he would ditch her and come flying to you.”

Lily looks into Marlene’s eyes, so dark that they’re almost black, and she knows that Marlene wants Lily’s happiness so wholly that Lily feels overcome by the sudden wave of adoration that washes over her. Marlene would do _anything_ for Lily, and Lily knows that.

“I know,” Lily says quietly. “And that is why you mustn’t tell anyone about this journal.”

Marlene nods now. Mary does the same. Lily breathes in a sharp breath of relief. “There’s more,” she says, and both her friends turn to attention once more. “I don’t really…like him like that. I just—write about how I feel so that I don’t…like him.”

They both look perplexed, but Lily continues. “They’re like if I put my feelings in a box and put them away. I can keep them in there, and there, they’ll stay and not eat me up inside. I need to keep them in there so I don’t just…explode!”

“But--“ Marlene says gently. Lily glares at her again. Marlene relents. “I won’t tell him. I promise.”

Lily breathes a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

As they walk down to breakfast, Lily spies Potter and Hestia in the Entrance Hall, having what looks to be a Very Serious Discussion. She feels Marlene tense up next to her, and she reaches out to squeeze Marlene’s hand, partly to thank her for her discretion and partly to remind her that she had indeed agreed to never tell another soul about Lily’s journal. And Lily would never, ever tell Mary or Marlene about the other journals.

They sat down at the Gryffindor table, Marlene and Mary on one side, and Lily facing them. Alice, who usually sat with Hestia and the Marauders for mealtimes, scoots in next to Lily. “Can I sit here?” she asks, and Lily’s stomach drops for a moment. _Does she know? Did she overhear? Was she just outside the door?_

“Sure,” Marlene says. “Where’s Jones?” Since Hestia and Lily’s falling out, Marlene and Mary had iced Hestia out, choosing Lily in the end. Alice, who had always been Hestia’s friend, had ended up being collateral damage, and their relationship with her had remained cordial, if a bit frosty.

“Having a row with Potter in the Entrance Hall,” Alice grumbles. “Lily, could you pass the sausages?”

Mary’s eyebrows go up, so far up that Lily thinks just a slight raise and she could touch her hairline. “What are they rowing about?” Marlene asks. Lily can tell she is trying to sound nonchalant.

“Tell you the truth, I don’t know what they’re _not_ rowing about these days,” Alice replies, spearing a sausage with her fork and taking a thoughtful bite. “All they do is bloody row and shag.”

Lily couldn’t help it—she laughed. “Never a dull moment with those two,” she chuckles, and Mary and Marlene nod in agreement, smiling widely.

Alice just shakes her head in a morose sort of way. “Don’t tell her I said anything,” she says warningly, and almost as if on cue, Hestia walks into the Great Hall and makes a beeline for Alice.

“Can we talk?” she asks. Glancing around, she sees whom Alice is sitting with. “In private?” Alice nods, standing up and swinging her back over her shoulder. Lily wants to say something, but she knows Hestia doesn’t want to hear from her so she stays quiet, staring forcedly at her

“Bye, Alice,” Marlene says. Alice waves lightly before following Hestia out of the Great Hall. She turns to Lily and Mary. “What in Merlin’s pants is going on?!”

“Mar,” Lily groans. “Please. Enough about Merlin’s pants.”

“Yes, Mar, we don’t want to hear some old sod’s pants, please,” Mary agrees, jabbing a piece of toast toward Marlene.

“I suppose I can’t say _What in Professor Slughorn’s pants is going on_ then?”

Lily and Mary burst into giggles, and Lily knows without a doubt that she can trust these two with her secrets, and she begins to wonder why she never told them in the first place.

* * *

It isn’t until breakfast two days later that the news hits the Hogwarts student body like the Knight Bus barreling through Diagon Alley.

Mary and Lily sit together in their usual spot, in the middle of the long Gryffindor table right where there is a huge burn mark from when Hestia knocked over a Never Out Candle, reviewing their Transfiguration homework. Unlike Lily and Marlene, Mary has a knack for Transfiguration. “I was good at maths in primary school,” she had told them once. When they had stared at her, she replied, “What? Transfiguration is just a lot of maths.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Marlene had murmured and yanked Mary’s essay toward her to do some “light plagiarizing” as she liked to call it.

Today, Mary is explaining Gamp’s Law to Lily. “So you can’t make food? But you can make more food if you have some food?” Lily asks, scribbling furiously. “I get that, but _why?”_

“It’s science,” Mary explains. “You can’t make something out of nothing.”

A dark red curl has escaped Lily’s bun, and she pushes it back impatiently. “Then what is the _point_ of the Statute of Secrecy? If we can’t solve world hunger or give everyone money or bring people back from the de—“

“Guess. What.” Marlene drops into the seat across from them, looking flush. Mary and Lily exchange looks. They know what’s coming—Marlene knows something and is positively dying to share.

“You’ve finally agreed to give Martin Midgen a shot?”

“You saw Filch starkers this morning?”

“Ah. You’ve finally shagged Black!”

Marlene rolls her eyes. “Ha ha,” she says mirthlessly. “Fine, I won’t tell you then.” She looks as if she may possible implode with the force of a dying star if she doesn’t tell someone whatever she knows at once.

“Okay, fine. What is it?” Lily sets down her parchment and leans in toward Marlene to listen.

Marlene looks up and down the table carefully, and then scans the rest of the Great Hall before speaking in a carrying whisper. “Potter and the she-devil broke up!”

“What?”

“When?”

“How do you know?”

“ _When?”_

Marlene leans back, looking thrilled with this turn of events, where Lily and Mary are rapt with attention.

“In the dormitory this morning! I was in the loo, and I think they thought I was gone. Alice was asking if that wench was going to some party on Halloween with Potter, and she said, ‘No, because we _broke up!’”_ Marlene ends on a squeal. Lily and Mary are captivated by her storytelling. They both lean in further. Marlene takes a deep breath, clearly enjoying the attention they’re giving her, and continues. “And then she said she’s met someone _else!_ Some bloke who graduated last year.”

“Who?”

“She wouldn’t say.” Marlene shrugs and takes a bite out of a piece of toast. “Alice asked a few times, but she just said she doesn’t want to tell anyone yet but that he works at the Ministry and that they’ve been seeing one another since—get this— _over the summer holidays_.”

Mary claps a hand over her gaping mouth. “She cheated on Potter? After all that?!”

Marlene nods smugly. “After allllll that. She just…cheats on him with some _older guy._ ”

“But they seemed—“ Lily trails off for a moment, remembering something she wrote in her Potter journal. _You’re kind to Hestia, and you give her the kind of attention that she needs. You hold her hand and kiss her whenever you see her. Once, you touched her hair right before you left for Quidditch practice, and I wonder how it would feel if you touched my hair._

“—strong,” Lily finishes lamely. “They seemed very strong.”

Mary and Marlene are wearing identical confused looks. “Helloooo?” Mary waves a hand in front of Lily’s face. “Did you or did you not hear Alice say all they do is row and shag just this week?”

“Oh yeah…” Lily trails off.

“You _know_ what this means,” Marlene says, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively at Lily.

Mary pretends to have gone temporarily deaf, and Lily rolls her eyes.

“I don’t feel that way about Potter, Mar,” she says, more defensively than she would have likes. “I just want to make sure that whatever happens, Potter doesn’t get distracted from Head duties. With Halloween coming up—and now that we know there’s an illegal party going on—“

 _“Lily_ ,” Marlene implores. “Come on. You cannot be seriously thinking about being Head Girl right now. Potter. Is. Single.”

“I don’t like him!”

“You know what I think is weird,” Mary interjects, trying to change the subject. “Hestia basically ditched all of us because Potter didn’t like her, but then she goes and cheats on him. What is _that_ about?”

“Beats me.” Marlene says this to Mary, but her eyes are fixed on Lily.

“What?” Lily finally says after Marlene’s motionless stare starts to give Lily the creeps.

“I don’t believe you,” Marlene finally says in a whisper. “I don’t believe that you don’t like him. Let me read the rest of that diary.”

“I told you, it’s a journal!”

“What were you writing in the one on Tuesday? Another book about Potter?”

“No! That one was about…my sister.” Lily’s face purples now, and she looks down into her lap. The girls know a bit about Petunia Evans, Lily’s older sister who is due to get married over the Christmas holidays. What they didn’t know is that Petunia had written to Lily and asked her to not attend the wedding. _I want to make a good impression on Vernon’s family,_ is what her letter said. And Lily hadn’t replied to the letter, instead wondering, _What about our family?_

“Oh.” There is an awkward silence.

“Well,” Mary breathes. “Time for Transfiguration. Better get walking.”

“Oh, bollocks!” Marlene exclaims. “I forgot to write my essay about the five exceptions to Gamp’s Law. Mare, can I—“

But Mary was already handing Marlene her essay with a resigned look on her face.

* * *

The next day, Lily awakens with pillow to her face.

“Wha--?” she mumbles, shoving the pillow away and trying to burrow back into the warm covers.

“Wake up, you bloody slob.” Marlene’s voice broke through Lily’s consciousness like a Bludger to the head.

Lily cracks open one eye to see Mary and Marlene each sitting on their tidy, made beds, and two small house elves scurrying about the dormitory. Lily sits bolt upright, her eyes widening as she watched their small heads and batlike ears bob up and down as they collected Lily’s scattered belongings. She gapes. In her entire seven years here, she has never seen any evidence that there are _actual_ house elves living at Hogwarts.

“What the--? How?”

“We called in reinforcements,” Mary explains. “How you can be Head Girl and be so untidy is beyond my comprehension.”

“Well, Potter is untidy, and _he’s_ Head Boy,” Alice says from her vanity, where she is braiding her hair. Lily looks around; Hestia is nowhere to be found.

“Pardon, miss,” says one of the elves, and Lily marvels at their voices. “But do you have any other washing that needs to be done?”

“Er—yes,” Lily replies, pointing to her trunk. “Just in there.” With a wave of her wand, she unlocks the trunk, and the house elf dives in, tossing out Lily’s laundry one item at a time. Lily watches in half fascination, half horror as the elf digs out worn socks, knickers, and all manner of clothes until there is a mountain of dirty laundry that is taller than the house elf itself.

“Clean the whole lot,” Marlene says carelessly.

“Marlene!” Lily admonishes.

Marlene looks a bit guilty, adding, “Please,” at Lily’s glare.

The second house elf snaps their long fingers and all the contents of Lily’s trunk vanish.

“Hey!” she cries, jumping out of bed now, not minding that she wasn’t wearing pajamas on the bottom half of her body. “My stuff!”

“Not to worry, miss,” the house elf says reassuringly. “We’ll return everything, but we just want to scrub the trunk.” Lily peers down into the trunk, and sure enough, there is a layer of dirt and grime at the bottom of the trunk that makes her wrinkle her nose.

“Okay,” she says, flopping back down into her bed. “Okay, fine.”

“Oh no you don’t!” Mary says, leaping off her bed. “Let’s go! It’s Quidditch in an hour, and I want breakfast!”

Lily groans again. “I forgot it’s the Gryffindor-Ravenclaw match today.” She flops back onto the unmade bed, kicking her legs up in the air in mild protest. “I’m so tired. I just want to sleep all day.”

“You can sleep _after_ the match,” Marlene says. “Go take a shower and meet us in the Great Hall. It’s going to be the best match of the year.”

“Not if we lose,” Lily mutters, swinging her legs back up and jumping off the bed. The smaller house elf takes advantage of her getting up to snap their fingers again, and all the bedclothes are gone. Lily sighs, knowing that now she simply cannot feign taking a shower and going back to sleep after her friends leave.

When she steps into the shower, the stream of hot water invigorates her. She stands still under the spray for a few minutes, thinking back to the chaos and stress of the last week. _Next week will be normal_ , she reminds herself firmly. She takes ten more minutes to wash her riotous curls and scrub her skin, then dries off and dresses in the only jeans that the house elves left behind, her maroon trainers, and her Gryffindor jumper. With a flick of her wand, she dries her hair and yanks on a maroon and gold hat with the Gryffindor lion emblazoned on the front. Throwing a jacket over her arm, she raced down to the Great Hall where Marlene and Mary were chatting amicably about the upcoming match.

“If they beat us, though—“

“Yeah, then our ranking goes down, but we’re number one right now so—“

“So we’ll be number…two?”

“That depends on the points,” Marlene explains patiently. Lily and Mary, both Muggleborns, had never much understood Quidditch or how the team rankings worked, but they luckily had Marlene to shed some light on the hundreds of different fouls that were possible in the sport. “But we won’t lose. We’ve got Smith, who’s the best Seeker this school has seen in about a decade, and Potter on Chaser.”

“And Black,” Lily adds, plopping herself down and reaching for the toast tray.

“And Black,” Marlene agrees, her cheeks reddening.

“What are our chances of winning the House Cup if we lose?” Mary asks, turning to Marlene again.

Already bored with this conversation, Lily zones out, looking around the Great Hall as students filter in, clustered in their respective cliques. Her gaze falls to the Slytherin table, and there’s Severus sitting with his tragic little friend group. Avery and Mulciber flank Severus on either side, and Lily feels a wild surge of rage well up inside her. She flicks her eyes away for a moment, only to draw back when Severus mutters something and both Avery and Mulciber sneer cruelly. At one time, Lily would have done anything to be included in Severus’s friend group, to be next to him all the time. _At one time, I loved you_ , she had written. _I think I still do. But did you ever love me? You told me that it didn’t make a difference that I was Muggleborn. Why does it matter now?_

Snape glances up, and meets Lily’s eyes. She resists the desire to look away, boring into his black eyes with her own bright green ones, reminding him that she, too, knows him. Telling him, without words, that if he wanted her back, all he had to was return to her and leave _them_ behind. She would accept his apology. She would welcome him back and defend him and fight for him. All he had to do was really, sincerely ask.

And then he tears his eyes from hers, turning back to Mulciber, and she knows that he won’t. Her eyes trail over the Ravenclaw table where their Quidditch team huddles together under one of the blue and silver banners. They’re not in uniform yet, but each of the seven players holds a broomstick. She look down the Gryffindor table now, and sees their own Quidditch team huddled together with Quidditch Captain Potter pointing at a parchment in the center of their huddle. He’s speaking in a low voice, looking intently at Hera Smith, the sixth-year Seeker that Marlene had mentioned earlier, and Lily had to admit that she found it unlikely that Gryffindor could lose. She remembered the match last spring, the one that Potter and Black had to sit out because they were in trouble, and how Hera had caught in the Snitch in the first twenty minutes of the game, setting Gryffindor on the path to a House Cup victory.

Potter looks up for a moment, and catches Lily looking at him. He grins at her, fleetingly, and then turns his attention back to the parchment, looking serious once more. She doesn’t look away, observing the looks on the other players’ faces. Sirius Black looks spellbound by Potter, and Hera Smith is focusing with such intensity that she has wrinkle in between her eyebrows. The other two Chasers, Blake Johnson and Adele DiBruno, were nodding now as Potter directed some instructions at them. The rest of the team, Beater Harold Sterling and Keeper Layla Ekram, were nodding along with Potter, a slight smile on their faces. Lily is overcome by the keenest feeling, as if she wished _she_ were on the team just so she could see Potter be a leader, be there to have him clap her on her shoulder and wish her luck. He has a kind of shine to him, Potter, she realizes, only it doesn’t dim those around him. It has the opposite effect, where those around him seem more radiant, more confident, more cared for because _he_ cares about them. Lily wonders how it would feel to constantly be in that aura, and she realizes with a start that she was there once, and she felt none of the warmth that she feels now. Something _had_ changed with Potter. She wondered if she’d find out before they graduated, if perhaps she could ask him as they did rounds one night. Would he tell her?

Lily finishes her toast and starts on another, now turning her gaze back to Marlene and Mary, who are now discussing the hot topic of the month: Potter and Hestia’s breakup.

“Where is she anyway?” Lily asks, looking up and down the table. Hestia’s distinctive blonde hair is nowhere to be seen, and she sees Alice having breakfast a little ways down the table, alone.

“Oi, Alice!” Marlene calls at the same time that Mary hisses, “No!”

Alice looks up, rolls her eyes, then walks over to join the three girls.

“Where’s your mate?” Marlene asks pointedly. “Not going to the match.”

“I’ve no earthly idea where she’s gone off to,” Alice responds, but they know she knows.

“Hmmm, odd,” Mary comments. “She usually comes to Gryffindor matches at least.”

“Well, that’s because of Potter. And that’s not a thing any longer, now is it?”

“Come off it! They’ll be back together by the end of the match,” Marlene scoffs.

Alice looks dubious, shrugging. She glances over at Potter now and her brows furrow. “He doesn’t look a bit bothered, does he? It’s almost like it didn’t happen.”

“You know Potter,” Marlene says. “He could be struck with Avada Kedavra, and it would basically roll off his back.”

Lily silently agrees.

* * *

Gryffindor wins the match, three hundred and seventy to one hundred twenty. Potter scored four goals, Black got a great shot at the Ravenclaw Seeker, but the match was close and Hera Smith, the greatest Seeker the school’s seen in decades, sits now on the shoulders of Potter and Black in the Gryffindor Common Room, being lauded as the heroine of the entire match. Potter’s even conjured her a scarlet sash to wear that reads “World’s Greatest Seeker.” Hera is laughing in between slugs of what appears to be firewhiskey, and Lily thinks that as Head Girl, she should stop the sixth year girl before she gets too sloshed.

“Aw, let her have her fun!” Marlene says loudly in Lily’s ear, accurately reading Lily’s thoughts.

“How’d you—?"

“Lily Clementine Evans,” Marlene says in a bossy sort of way. “I know you better than _anyone_.”

“Evans! Your middle name is _Clementine?”_ Remus Lupin exclaims, swinging an arm around Lily’s shoulders and giving her a little shake. Potter looks over now, and when he sees Remus teasing Lily, wears an expression on his face that Lily can’t quite read, but it’s pleasant and Lily feels warm inside watching as Potter and Black set Hera down only for her to be lifted back into the air by Sterling and Johnson.

Lily laughs, sipping her butterbeer as the raucous festivities around her grow wilder by the minute, all her thoughts of a post-match nap gone as she dives into a conversation with Remus, easily her favorite of the Marauders. Remus, who became a prefect with Lily in their fifth year, used to be a shy sort of boy, but soon enough became friends with Potter and Black, who, along with Peter Pettigrew, became the Marauders.

“Have you thought about what you’re going to do after school?” Remus asks over the noise.

Lily nods. “I’m trying for the Auror Academy! We’ll see. They’re very selective. I have to have top marks on almost everything!”

“You’re top in our class,” Remus says. “You won’t have any trouble.”

“What about you?”

“Oh, you know—this and that. Thought about teaching maybe.”

Right then, Sirius Black approaches, slinging his arm around Remus’s shoulders and declaring, “Us and the lads are getting a flat together in London!” Sirius is positively shouting now. “We’re not getting jobs. Jobs are for tossers.”

“Spoken like someone who’s never needed a job,” Mary teases.

“Oh, stuff it, McDonald,” Black says. Mary feigns offense, and they go back and forth for a bit before Marlene speaks up.

“Where in London?”

“Not sure yet,” Remus replies. “We—“

“—are the champions!” Now Potter interjects, holding a bottle of some amber liquid in one hand and singing. “ _Of the worlddddddd.”_

Lily and Mary stared at him. “How do _you_ know that song?” Mary blurts out. “That’s a _Muggle_ song!”

“Prongs here—“ Sirius pats James’s chest “—is a rather big fan of Muggle music. Got the record owled here courtesy of his parents.”

“Does it work?” Lily asks. “On school grounds I mean?”

“’Course it works, Evans!” Potter exclaims, taking another swig of his drink. “How would I know the words if it didn’t work?”

“But you’re _Pureblood_ ,” Marlene says rudely. Lily looks over at her, and she’s clearly drunk quite a bit, also. Is Lily the only one who isn’t completely tossed? She makes a mental note to give Marlene a Sobering Solution later on.

“Well spotted, McKinnon,” James replies, his eyes narrowed. “And so are you.”

“And so am I!” Sirius shouts. “And so’s my tosser brother.”

“Lily’s got a tosser for a sister, too,” Marlene jokes, pointing at Lily now. “You could give her some pointers.”

“Oh, have you, Evans?” Sirius leans in. “You want my best advice on dealing with a tosser sibling?”

Lily feels a twinge of annoyance at Marlene for bringing up Petunia, but she leans in toward Black anyway. “Sure.”

“FUCK ‘EM!” he shouts, and everyone laughs now. Lily looks around—all her housemates appear to be here, and no one looks like they are in any danger of dying or wreaking irreparable havoc to the Common Room. What harm could having a few drinks do?

Several long hours later, as the sky darkens outside, Lily is drunkenly playing an increasingly more dangerous game of Exploding Snap with Mary, Marlene, and the Marauders. She’s already singed the ends of her hair a bit, and Marlene is nursing two burnt fingers on her left hand. Mary is winning.

“How is she doing this?” Potter exclaims after Mary won yet another round. “Are you a Seer?” He looks at her accusingly.

Mary laughs. _She’s sooooo drunk,_ Lily thinks, then _I’m so drunk_! Mary’s cheeks are flushed, her eyes bright and filled with trouble. Lily herself feels a bit reckless and wild, and she’s certain that’s the effect of the firewhiskey that Pettigrew had procured for her from his robes pocket. “I’m just faster than you, Potter!” Mary shouts as the cards start shuffling faster and faster. Marlene is laughing hysterically, sitting on a small sofa right next to Sirius. _They’re a cute couple,_ Lily thinks, gazing fondly at them until, all of a sudden, Sirius reaches out in a dash like he’s swatting a fly and hits a card with the tip of his wand.

The card explodes, but not in enough time for Sirius to pull his hand away. The explosion gets his hand good, and he yelps in pain, yanking his arm back and cradling his hand to his chest.

“Bollocks!” he cries. “Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

“You hurt, Padfoot?” Peter says, swaying slightly in his seat. Lily can’t tell if she’s doing it, but she feels like _she_ might be swaying, too. She’s never been this drunk before. Where was that Sobering Solution? Had she kept it in her trunk? She tries to remember where she last saw it, but is failing spectacularly. Maybe the house elves could help her learn how to organize her room better.

Sirius is now showing the group his hand, which sports a shiny new burn.

“You should let Marlene help you with it,” Lily offers, hiccupping slightly. “She’s a good Healer.”

Marlene narrows her eyes at Lily, but shrugs. “I’m alright, I suppose. Lily’s the Potions whiz here—she can get you fixed up in no time. She probably has the potion in her trunk upstairs—if she can find it.”

“Yeah, but I’m not the one who fancies Black, Mar,” Lily blurts out. Almost immediately, she realizes what she’s done. The others titter nervously, but Potter is grinning like a lunatic.

“McKinnon! You fancy my mate here?”

“Shut up, Prongs,” Peter, Remus, and Sirius say in chorus, trying their best not to mortify Marlene even further.

Lily isn’t sure why she does it. Later, she blames it on the alcohol she’s consumed, but right here, in this moment, she says, “She’s fancied him since first year.”

“Lily!” Mary hisses. “Stop.”

This makes the scene even more awkward, and Lily feels like she’s watching herself say these words to Sirius and Potter and Remus and Peter. As if from far away, she sees Marlene stutter out a, “No, she’s just drunk!” But then the game is over, and Marlene is standing up. Lily tries to stand, too, but starts to fall over.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Potter says, now rising to grab Lily’s elbow to steady her. Marlene has disappeared all of a sudden, and Lily glances around to see her dark hair whip up the stone steps that go to the girls’ dormitory.

“Oh _no_ ,” Lily groans, and as she stands up, the room swirls around her and she puts a hand to her stomach, which is roiling with the firewhisey and the game and the journals and Severus and Hestia and the Potions project. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

And with that, she vomits all over Potter.

* * *

When Lily rouses, it’s quite different from the morning before. This time, she opens her eyes—or eye—on her own, and she’s lying in her four-poster with the curtains shut, only a tiny sliver of sunlight peeking through.

She tries to open both eyes with moderate success, but then immediately squeezes them shut. Her head is pounding. She remembers last night—the Quidditch match, the Exploding Snap, the _firewhiskey_. She groans, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her hand. She hears nothing from her roommates, and then her eyes widen. _Marlene._

She remembers now, how she drunkenly divulged Marlene’s big secret to everyone, how Marlene had stormed upstairs, how Lily had got sick all over Potter. She sits upright, ignoring her pounding head, and wrenches open the curtains. Two pairs of dark eyes stare at her. Mary and Marlene are sitting together, on Mary’s bed. It’s clear Marlene has been crying—her eyes are bloodshot.

“Mar—“ Lily croaks, swinging her legs over the side of her bed and stumbling clumsily out, the sheets tangling around her feet, causing her to pitch forward.

“Arresto Momentum!” she hears Mary say, and it feels like she’s paused inches above the ground for minutes, but it’s less than a second. Then she collapses lightly. Immediately, she scrambles up and crosses the few feet across their bed.

“Mar,” Lily whispers. “I’m so…sorry. I’m so so sorry.”

“Thought you’d get back at me for reading you little diary, didn’t you?” Marlene says nastily.

“It’s a—“ Lily pauses. This is not the time for arguing. This is the time for groveling. “Marlene, it wasn’t about that at all, I promise. I messed up! I’ll tell them I was just joking, that it was just a joke.”

“It’s too late for that, Lily!” Mary cries, her voice shrill. Lily is taken aback. Mary normally does not take sides in arguments like this; this is how Lily knows how badly she has messed up.

“It’s not. I can just go and tell Potter—he’ll tell Black—it’ll all be fine,” Lily starts looking for her pajama bottoms and dressing gown, turning around to look at the floor where she knew she left them. But they weren’t there.

Ah. The house elves. They had done her washing and put away her things. But where?

“It doesn’t work that way,” Marlene says coldly. “They all know now that I fancy Black, and you should have seen his face.” She looks mad enough to spit fire now. “Now I know he’ll _never_ like me like that.”

“He _does_ like you,” Lily insists, flipping open her trunk lid and searching for pajama bottoms. “Last night, he was sitting next to you, and talking to you!”

“And it was going great!” Marlene snarls. “Until _you_ had to—“

“Marlene, I was drunk. I’m sorry! I’ve never been drunk like that before. I didn’t even know what I was saying.” Finally! Lily spots her dark green pajama bottoms, and begins to yank them on. “I’ll go down and set it right.”

“Don’t bother,” Marlene sniffs. “He’s completely not interested, and I’m _humiliated_.” She stands up and storm to the door of the dormitory.

“Marlene, don’t go!” Lily says, pleading. “Please, let’s just fix this. I know we can.”

“Just leave me alone, Lily.” She turns to the door, opens it, and leaves. Mary stands up now, too.

“Don’t tell me you’re angry at me, too,” Lily mutters.

“I’m not,” Mary replies. “But I think I should be with Marlene right now.”

Lily hangs her head in shame, then feels Mary give her a quick hug. “I gotta go,” Mary says. “Mar will be okay. Just give her…some time to cool off.” Mary sniffs Lily. “You should, er, consider a shower before going down.”

Lily nods, watching Mary’s brown ponytail swing away. She turns away, trying not to cry. The clock reads 11 am. Sighing, she undresses and steps into the shower, letting the hot water cascade over her as she lets herself cry a few tears.

This was not she and Marlene’s first fight. Nor would it be their last. Being friends for seven years, and living together for much of that time almost guaranteed that the girls had the occasional disagreement. What feels different this time around is…Mary. In all the years they’ve been friends, Mary has never taken a side when Lily and Marlene have gone at it. Lily and Marlene have not been as gracious, easily picking a side when Mary has been involved in a disagreement. But outside of the falling out with Hestia, Mary has been firmly in the middle.

Lily sighs as she dresses, peering at newly reorganized wardrobe and trunk. All her jumpers had been hung with care in the wardrobe, her school skirts folded neatly in stacks underneath them. She opens one of her drawers to find her bras, knickers, socks, and stockings all neatly arranged. Then, she remembers the journals, her panic as the house elves disappeared all her belongings. She goes to her trunk, lifting the lid and peering inside. Her extra school supplies, books, and some clothes have been carefully arranged in here. The inside of the trunk smells like lavender, and Lily makes a mental note to find out the house elves’ names and write them thank you notes. She reaches in, pushing an old Herbology text aside, and sees them. Four identical black journals that she’d purchased from a Muggle shop in Cokeworth. They were the among the least magical things she owned, and yet, they felt like magic to her. She slid one out—the one she had never finished last week, and sighed, pressing it open to where she had finished.

Now she was in a fight with her sister and Marlene. _Great,_ she thinks. _Perfect. Seventh year going swell. My sister uninvited me to her wedding, and my best friend is furious with me._ She sighs, thinking she’ll maybe go to the library and start researching her Potions project. Slowly, she packs her school bag, dawdling a bit and hoping that Marlene will come back and forgive her. After a few minutes, Lily realizes she’s being ridiculous and swings her bag over her shoulder, tucks her wand in her back pocket, and leaves the dormitory.

She doesn’t see any of the Marauders in the common room, and in fact, she sees hardly anyone. Peeking out of a large portrait window, she realizes that the weather is gorgeous, and most people are probably outside, enjoying their Sunday before the start of classes again tomorrow. She feels more pathetic than ever and speeds up, crossing into the library at a pace that made Madam Bollier, the ancient librarian, frown. Lily makes a beeline for her usual spot under the stained glass window of the knight kneeling before a king, but as she approaches, she comes to find it occupied.

“Oh!” she exclaims. Severus Snape is sitting right under the kneeling knight. He turns around in his seat before she can hide.

“Oh.” He stares at her a moment, and then smiles. “I forgot this is your spot.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Lily stammers, backing away. “You have it. There’s lots of space. I—I can—I’ll just—go. Somewhere, er, else. Sorry.” She turns on her heel, her face flaming with humiliation.

“Lily!” Severus calls, and she doesn’t know why she does it, but she turns to face him. “We can…study together.”

“Er…no,” she replies. “No, I don’t want to disturb you. I have Potions research and—“

“I have all the books on Veritaserum.” Severus gestures to the table, and indeed, he has a large stack of what looks like nearly every reference book they could ever need to do this term’s project.

Lily hesitates, and she knows that Severus sees that. “Please?” he says quietly. Something inside her relents.

“Yeah, ok.” She sets her bag down, pulling out her Potions binder and a quill.

For nearly an hour, they work in silence, the only sound the scratching of quills and the turning of pages. Lily sits next to Severus, but each is fully absorbed in the words on the pages of the book. Finally, Severus lets out a deep sigh, pushing his book away and leaning back in his seat, stretching his long arms overhead. Lily glances over at him, and for the briefest moment, she can remember what it was like to be his friend.

“This is…” he starts to say.

“—going to be impossible,” Lily finishes, and they share a laugh.

“I dunno what Slughorn is thinking giving us a potion that takes full month to brew.”

“Making sure we all pass our N.E.W.T.s, that’s what.”

“He’s mad.”

“Yeah, but he’s always been like that.”

It feels good to be back with Severus this way, like it used to be. They banter easily, periodically trading notes, and Lily feels a surge of affection for him. Maybe he was coming back to her. Maybe this would be it, and her future could look how she always imagined it to be. She imagines falling back in love with Severus, not hiding what she felt in a journal that he would never read, graduating with him at her side. He had understood her, and when she no longer had Petunia, he had been her companion when she went over the summers and holidays, too. _It could still be that way,_ she thinks as she says something that makes him laugh.

When the lanterns above their heads turn on, Lily looks surprised. It has been hours. She peers outside the stained glass window and the sky outside is dark.

“I should go,” she says, her stomach giving a huge grumble. She hasn’t eaten anything since yesterday, she realized. She wonders if Marlene is still angry at her. Who will she sit with at dinner?

“I’ll walk with you.” Severus gets up too, waving his wand at the huge stack of books that levitate off the table, and float away slowly toward Madam Bollier’s desk. He turns to her; she turns to leave, but then feels his hand on hers and now he’s pulling her back toward him.

He reaches out to grasp her other hand, and pulls her in. She can’t breathe all of a sudden, and they stand there in silence, Lily looking directly into his black eyes and remembering a time when she would have given anything to stand with him like this.

“We can still be together,” Severus says in a low voice. “I’m sorry for what I said. What I did.”

“Sev—“ she whispers, and he closes his eyes, relishing the way that his name sounds in her mouth. “Sev, you called me a—“

“I know,” he says quickly. “I know. That was a mistake. I said I was sorry, and I still am. Lily—“ His hand slide up her arms, slip up her shoulders, and he cradles her face so gently. She closes her eyes for a moment, relishing his touch. It had been so long since he’d held her. Since she’d let him hold her.

“Are you still trying to—“ She looks deep into his eyes. “—join him?”

“If I said no, would you like me again?” There was some mirth in his voice, but Lily shook her head.

“Tell me the truth. Everyone says you’re a—“

“I’m not.”

“Not ever or not yet?”

He drops his hands now, and the loss of contact makes her want to fall through the floor. He reaches up, rubbing his temples. “What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing,” she says, realizing that what she wanted from him would never come. She couldn’t spell it out for him; he had to come to that realization on his own. “Nothing at all.” She turns away to leave again, tears threatening to fall, when he grabs her wrist, turns her around, and kisses her.

For a fraction of a second, she lets him kiss her, relishing the feeling of his familiar mouth on hers, and then she pulls away. “Don’t.” She’s shaking now, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Don’t do that. It’s not fair.”

She turns on her heel and flees, ignoring Madam Bollier shouting at her to not run in the library, racing down the corridor, down five flights of stairs, out of the huge oak doors, and down the stone steps leading to the wide lawn. She runs until she can’t run anymore, collapsing under a tall tree at the edge of the Black Lake. The tears never fall, but she still takes great shuddering breaths as the last of the light in the sky goes out. She’s not sure how long she sits there.

“Evans?”

Ugh.

“Are you stalking me, Potter?”

“You sure that’s how you want to talk to me after you were sick on me last night?”

Lily groaned, covering her eyes with her hands. “Did I ruin your clothes?”

Potter laughed, and the sound was a welcome one. Lily struggled to stand, and he walked over, putting out a hand to help her up. “Nah, you didn’t ruin anything,” he says collegially. “How’re you feeling today?”

“I had a Hangover Potion, but I’m afraid I haven’t got a potion for how angry I made Marlene.”

Potter laughed even harder now as they walked across the lawn toward the twinkling lights of the castle. “Oh _that_. Don’t worry about that. Padfoot will fix that no problem.”

Lily gapes at him, his gigantic grin apparent even in the darkness. “You mean—he fancies her, too?” She feels a leap of joy. Maybe she hadn’t screwed things up with Marlene after all!

Potter shrugs. “He’s never said outright, but we always suspected. She’s the most attractive girl in our year, you know, McKinnon.”

“Don’t let Hestia hear you say that,” Lily jokes. Potter stiffened, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Oh, sorry.” Lily feels like an arse. “Have I made it awkward?”

“You would never make it awkward, Evans, rest assured.” He pauses. “I’m sure you heard, but Hess ditched me this week for some other bloke.”

“I did hear something about that.” A pause. “Are you okay?”

He shrugs again. “I’ve been better. But I’ve been worse, too.”

“I’m sorry.”

“My mum says it’ll get easier. This happens with your first real relationship, she said.”

“Your mum sounds smart.”

“The smartest.”

They had reached the front doors now, and Lily waves at Potter now. “Well…bye, Potter.”

“Hey, wait, Evans…what _were_ you doing out here all alone?”

“What were _you_ doing out there all alone?”

He grins. “Okay. I know when I’m beat.” He looks at her. “You should go in first.” Lily nods, grateful for what he leaves unsaid.

The moment she enters the Great Hall, she knows that Marlene is no longer mad. She waves at Lily madly, and Lily, grateful for her friends more than ever after the extremely bizarre few days she’s had, strolls over to them, seating herself next to Mary and across from Marlene.

“Guess what?” Marlene gushes almost immediately, and then, without waiting for Lily to guess, she exclaims, “Sirius asked me out!”

“What?!” Lily squeals. A few heads turn their way, but Lily ignores them, focusing entirely on Marlene and her elation. “That’s great news! When? Where?

“He asked me to go to a party with him on Halloween!”

“Oh, Mar, that’s great!” Lily replies. “I’m almost sorry that I’ll have to break it up.”

Marlene’s eyes narrow. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Let her have her date!” Mary admonishes Lily. “It’s only seven years in the making.”

“Right.” Lily turns to Marlene. “Just so you know, I _am_ still sorry. I didn’t mean to blurt out what I did, and even though you’re going out with Black now, that doesn’t make what I did okay. You trusted me, and I messed up big time.”

Marlene snorts. “How long have you been practicing that speech?”

“All bloody day,” Lily grumbles. “Now give me some chicken, will you? I haven’t eaten since before I was sick all over Potter yesterday.”

Mary and Marlene laugh, and Lily feels once again like all is right in her world.

* * *

The next morning, Lily wakes up late again. “Why didn’t you wake me up when _you_ woke up?” she mutters to Mary and Marlene as they hoist their schoolbags up.

“Lil, have _you_ ever tried to wake you up?” Mary rolls her eyes. “I’d rather have a fight with a giant.”

“Or an ogre,” Marlene supplies.

“A herd of hippogriffs.”

“Literally a dragon.”

“Oh, _fine._ I get it! I get it, okay?” Lily dashes around the dormitory, which is somehow once again littered with articles of her clothes, scrap paper, quills, and socks.

“Lil, we’re going down, okay?” Marlene says. “If you miss breakfast, we’ll bring you some to the greenhouses.”

Lily mutters her thanks as dashes to the shower, dresses haphazardly, and thanks her lucky stars that Marlene and Mary called in the house elves so her shirt is pressed, and her school jumper smells like lavender. She yanks on her shoes, now checking the time. It’s ten to nine.

“Fuck!” She swears as she stuffs her bag full, and runs at almost a full sprint out of the dormitory, down the stone steps, and right past a gaggle of students in the Common Room. She is out of the portrait hole, the Fat Lady shouting, “You’re going to show me some respect one of these days!”, when she hears another shout.

“Hey, Evans!” Potter. She turns to see him jogging toward her.

“Potter, not now! Sprout will have my head if I’m late.” She turns back around, and races down eight more flights of stairs, out of the oak front doors, and down to the greenhouses.

“You’re late, Miss Evans,” Professor Sprout says as Lily wheezes in, her face red and framed wildly by her red curls. “Five points from Gryffindor.”

“Sorry, Professor.” She goes to Mary and Marlene, who hand her a small napkin with a piece of toast, a small sausage, and a banana. She takes it gratefully, gulping down her lukewarm but satisfying breakfast.

“Today, we’re preparing the Venomous Tentacula for winter,” Professor Sprout starts, but she is immediately distracted as Potter saunters into the greenhouse. “You’re late, Potter!”

“Sorry, Professor,” Potter says, almost airily. He makes his way over to his friends, but not before scanning the greenhouse and catching Lily’s eye. He gives her a strange look. She rolls her eyes. Whatever is going on with him, she’s sure she’ll hear about it from the rest of the school within a few hours. Anything involving Potter and his mates almost always is school wide news. Lily used to tease Remus about it, asking him if they has considered putting out a weekly periodical on who they were snogging, dueling, or bullying that particular week.

“Who’d write it?” Remus had joked. “You know we’ve all got dung for brains.”

The Herbology lesson is lengthy, with Professor Sprout having to disentangle nearly one student in every group from the Tentacula’s wandering vines. Lily and Marlene have to wrench Mary away from the homicidal plant’s attempts, and by the end, all the students are sweaty, red-faced, and covered in dirt.

“I need another shower,” Marlene complains as they put away their gloves.

“Just use Scourgify for the dirt.” Lily points at bit of dirty on Marlene’s nose.

“I will _not_ miss this class when we leave here,” Mary says fervently as they cross the lawn again, heading inside for Double Potions with the Slytherins. “We always nearly die in this class. Why? Why must all the plants try to kill us? Has the Wizarding world considered friendlier plants?”

“At least _our_ plants do things!”

“Yes, like try to murder our friend.” Lily lightly ribs Marlene, testing the waters a bit to see if she’s still a bit sore at her. Marlene, thankfully, laughs, and they proceed down the stairs to the dungeons.

“Uh, Lil?” Mary says suddenly. “Why is Potter staring at you as if you’ve just been caught bathing in tapioca with your pet Kneazle?”

“Pardon?” Lily looks over her shoulder, and Mary’s right. Potter is giving her the funniest look, almost as if she _had_ been caught bathing in tapioca with her pet Kneazle. “Oh, for Merlin’s sake, I’m sure he has some bright new idea for the prefects, and just wants to give me more work to do. Never had to do work on his own, I suppose.” As they wait outside the Potions dungeon for the doors to open, Potter approaches the three girls, looking quite nervous all of a sudden.

“Er, can I talk to you?”

“Which one?”

“Evans, obviously.”

“Dunno why that’s so obvious,” mutters Mary, who steps into the Potions classroom and tugs Marlene’s sleeve in after her.

Lily turns to Potter now, and he simply looks _odd_. Is he going to be sick on her? She looks around as Gryffindors and Slytherins filter by them, paying them no mind.

“Bee in your bonnet, Potter?”

“Look, I dunno what you’re playing at here,” Potter starts, “but I _just_ got dumped, and yes, I liked you once, but _you_ yourself told me it was never going to happen with us, remember?”

Lily’s head swam with bewilderment. “What are you talking about, Potter?”

“And look, I’m glad you’ve noticed I’ve changed, and if I had known back then that’s what got your wand up, I would’ve grown up faster. But this—this is just _weird_ , and I dunno why you’d even send me that.”

“Send you _what?”_ Lily asks now, completely lost in the train of the conversation. “What gets my wand up? Potter, we’re both going to be later for another class.”

He huffs, fumbling in his bag, and holds something up. A slim, black book tied with a bright gold ribbon.

Her journal. About _him._

Her vision blurs, and then everything goes black.


	2. Chapter Two

Author's Note: 

Thank you for the reviews, dear readers! Thank you **Katrina, le_loup_garou, sophie, Dancingonstars,** and **Ice Spite** for reading and reviewing! Thank you to **pearl_flowwer, coconut5639, Moniquepro02, Dancingonstars, lucyhighgate, bertieeebee, le_loup_garou,** and **Rhian_rhitsu** for the kudos. When I get notification of a review or kudos in my inbox, I honestly get a huge smile on my face. I love nothing more than to see other readers enjoying Jily's adventures the way that I have in fandom. Please read and review!

Also, I want to thank my beta reader, **fanficreader938** , for their excellent feedback on this chapter, and giving me so many things to think about for the future of this fic.

* * *

**Chapter Two**

When Lily comes to, she is still outside the Potions classroom, but on the ground, not standing. Potter’s face hovers above hers, his forehead wrinkled with concern. 

“Evans? Are you alright?” 

“Ughhhhhhhhhh.”

He sits back on his heels, running his hands through his hair so that it looks even more untidy than usual. “Ah, thank Merlin. I thought we’d have to call Pomfrey, and I know she’d think I did something. It’s lucky you didn’t hit your head.”

Lily sits up gingerly, touching her hair. “Why didn’t I hit my head?”

“I caught you before you could,” James says. 

“Have I been out long?”

“Only about a minute. Gave me a good fright, though. You feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Lily mutters. “Can you help me up, Potter?”

“What?” He stands up. “Oh, yeah. Sure.” He reaches a hand down, and Lily clasps it, hoisting herself up and adjusting her robes. 

“Potter,” she says. “The book. Where did you get it? Did you somehow sneak into the girls’ dormitory and--” A wall of panic rises inside her now as she looks into James’s face. What was he even capable of? What if he’d seen the other journals? Her body feels taut, keyed up with tension, and if he says the exact wrong thing, she thinks she may snap and actually haul off and hit him. 

“It was on my bed when I went to sleep last night. I thought it was left by mistake, but then I opened it and it had _my_ name in it.” He sounds defensive, his eyes shifting side to side as if he’s done something wrong. “And no, I still haven’t figured out how to get into the girls’ dormitories, so rest easy, Evans!” 

“Please don’t tell me you read all of it.” The thought of Potter reading the entire journal, including what she had written last week, makes her cringe so deeply that she wonders if the feeling will linger forever. 

“Well, I’ve—“ His cheeks reddened slightly. “—I’ve never got something like this before. No one’s ever written anything for me...”

She stared at him, and he stared right back. “So is that a yes?”

“Yes, Evans, I read the entire thing.” _Fuck._

“Potter, you should know that I wrote that journal a really long time ago. I barely remember what I wrote.” _When you fly, it’s really, really beautiful._ “Can I please have my journal back now?”

Potter glances at the journal in his hand, still tied with the gold ribbon into a perfect little bow. “I dunno Evans. Some of it seems _pretty_ recent.” And then he _smiles!_ Lily immediately feels her temper spike. 

“James Potter,” she angrily whispers. “I’ll have you know that that book is private property, and if you don’t return it, I’ll—I’ll—“

“You’ll what, Evans?” He’s smirking now, looking too bloody amused, and Lily’s temper flares even higher, reaching a dizzying height she didn’t even know she was capable of. 

“I’ll tell Professor McGonagall that you’ve been sneaking into the girls’ dormitories and nicking our stuff!”

Potter looked outraged. “But I haven’t!”

“Prove it!”

“Bloody hell, how can I prove something that I _haven’t_ done, Evans?” 

“I don’t know and I don’t care. Give me back my journal!”

“I don’t think so, Evans.” He turns to walk into the Potions classroom, and Lily seizes her chance. She snaps her arm out, reaching desperately for the journal. She is almost able to snatch it back, but James is too fast for her, and he tightens his grip on the small book, turning around to grin impishly at Lily. “Evans, I’m not done reading this great work of literature, and I probably never will be. McGonagall would let her hair down before I give you back your little diary.”

“It’s a _journal!”_

Lily releases the journal, turning around in the corridor in a panic. _How had he got that journal?_ She tries to remember when she last saw them. The house elves had _definitely_ returned them yesterday…right? Why would they have given them to Potter? 

At that very moment, Severus, Avery, and Mulciber turn the corner. When she sees Severus, her blood runs cold. If the house elves gave her Potter journal to Potter, then they gave her Severus journal to—

He’s holding it in his left hand, his fingers curled around the spine of it. The black leather cover with the gold ribbon is pressed against his palm. _That’s mine_ , she thinks. When he sees her in the corridor, his face clouds in confusion, and there’s some kind of pleasure there, too, like he’s glad to see her. But he says nothing to her— _because he’s with them_ , she thinks savagely as the three Slytherins saunter right past her into the classroom. 

Shaking herself a bit, Lily enters the Potions dungeon , setting a direct course toward Mary and Marlene. 

“What did Potter want?” Marlene asks. Lily looks at her and Mary’s faces, and remembers that she can’t let anyone else know about the other journals. If Severus has one and Potter has the other…dread fills Lily’s stomach as she thinks about who might have the third. 

She shakes her head, trying to sound nonchalant. “Ah, just more work for me to do as Head Girl. You know, the usual with Potter.”

But Marlene doesn’t look convinced and neither does Mary. They start to set up their cauldrons, and Lily does the same, her mind completely preoccupied. She opens her copy of Advanced Potion Making, and stares at the page, not comprehending the words that stare back at her. 

“Are you feeling okay, Lily?” Mary places a gentle hand on her friend’s shoulder. Lily looks over, unseeing, and she feels as if she may faint again. 

“You know,” she says feebly. “I think I may just still be feeling the after effects of Saturday night.”

“I bet Professor Slughorn has a potion you could take,” Marlene suggests. “Or he may give you a drink if you asked. You know, hair of the dog.”

“Marlene, he is a _teacher_. He is not going to give Lily a brandy or whatever you’re thinking is going to happen.” Mary chides Marlene. The man in question stands at the front of the classroom, his huge, pale eyes glittering. 

“Now, now, ladies and gentlemen,” he announces. “Before you get too comfortable, I must ask that you pair up with your partners for the Potions practical. We’ll start brewing our Veritaserum today.”

Lily curses. She does _not_ want to work with Potter, not now that he has every tool at his disposal with which to blackmail her!

“Bye, Lil.” Mary and Marlene wave at her as she picks up her cauldron and moves to an empty table, silently hoping that Potter has forgotten that he decided they should be partners on this project. Maybe he’ll find Hestia and partner with her instead or Black would probably be more than happy to be partnered with his best mate. 

Unfortunately for Lily, here Potter is with his stupid brown eyes, stupidly crooked glasses, and stupid untidy hair. 

Lily closes her eyes, imagining that she’s still asleep in her four-poster upstairs, and that this is all a nightmare from which she will wake in a few moments. She’ll leap out of her bed, run to her trunk, and the journals will be there, right where the house elves left them. When she opens her eyes, she’ll be back in her cozy dormitory, and Mary and Marlene will be asleep next to her, and none of this day will have happened. 

When she opens her eyes, she is still in the dungeon, and James Potter is setting up his cauldron next to her. “Alright, Evans,” he says, flipping open his copy of Advance Potion Making and turning to the Veritaserum page. “Let’s get ourselves a pair of N.E.W.T.s.”

She looks at him, and he grins at her. For some reason, the grin doesn’t make her feel better. It only makes her feel worse. In another world, one where Potter hadn’t read her most intimate thoughts, she could put that grin in a pocket of her mind, saving it for her journal, where she’d put it away for good. But in this world, she can’t find anywhere to put that grin, and to her horror, she finds tears pricking her eyes. 

“I can get us the gillyweed and mandrake root,” Lily mumbles, turning away from Potter and nearly stumbling to the student store of Potions ingredients. Hastily, ensuring no one is watching, she dabs her eyes with the end of her sleeves. When she gets to the storage cupboard, however, she is horrified to find only one other student there, and it’s the last person she wants to see right now if she’s not including Potter. At this moment, she can’t decide which one she’s trying to avoid most. 

“Lily,” Severus says in a low voice that sounds almost like a purr. Why was he always doing that when he needed her attention? “Don’t leave!” he demands in a slightly louder voice. She had originally turned to walk away, but she stopped at his change in volume. She didn’t want to cause a scene—not here, and not with Severus most of all. She looks around nervously and sees Marlene watching her, her forehead creased with concern. 

“Lily—“ he says more quietly this time. “What did you mean when you sent me that diary?”

“How did you get it, anyway? I _didn’t_ send it,” she responds.

“It came with a school owl this morning at breakfast.”

“I bet you and all your _Pureblood_ friends had a right laugh, didn’t you?”

“No,” Severus murmured as he spooned mandrake root into a measuring cup. “I didn’t show them. Where were you at breakfast? When I saw what it was, I just wanted to talk to you. Do you still—feel that way?”

Lily’s heart skipped a beat. His voice—the earnestness in his voice reminded her of the person she used to know. For a moment, she almost blurts out “Yes!” but then she remembers that Severus is _not_ the boy that she had once loved, and no matter what she wrote in the journal, he was never going to return to her. Lily thinks back to yesterday in the library, his mouth on hers, and she has to close her eyes for a moment to get her bearings. _He never said never_ , Lily thinks. _He never said he’ll never be a Death Eater._

“Severus, I wrote that journal a long time ago. I barely remember what was in it.” She repeats almost verbatim what she told Potter out in the corridor, but at least here it’s true. 

“But you referenced my Potions project from last term at the end. That was just—“ he gestures “a few months ago.”

She swallows hard, a hard lump forming in her throat, and before she knows it, she’s saying, “Well, it doesn’t matter anymore because I’m seeing someone, and I definitely don’t feel that way about you anymore. Because I have a boyfriend, you see. I don’t even know how you got that book.”

His mouth tightens into a thin line. “Who is it?”

“Who is who?”

“The bloke you’re dating.”

As if on cue, Potter approaches Lily. “Evans, have you got that gillyweed and mandrake root?” His eyes narrow when he sees Severus there. “Is Snivellus bothering you again, Evans?” He looks Severus up and down with a sneer on his face, and Lily notices Severus’s hands clench into fists as he steps back a few paces. Lily looks up at Potter, and she considers his presence for a long moment. He still has some traces of his summer tan, and he seems taller than he’s ever seemed before. His jet black hair stands on end, but somehow he makes it look good. His shirtsleeves are rolled up, his tie a bit crooked, and he is looking down at her with a puzzled expression on his face. 

“Potter,” Lily says loudly as if she’s been struck by lightning. “It’s Potter.”

“What’s Potter?” Potter asks. 

“I’m dating Potter,” Lily says loudly, and without any preamble, she grabs two fistfuls of Potter’s robes, pulls him down toward her, sees his eyes widen in shock, and she kisses him full on the mouth. 

_He smells nice_ , she thinks as she feels him tense for a millisecond before enthusiastically looping his arm around her waist, pulling her up against him so that she’s on her tiptoes. She can feel the roughness of his chin against hers; his mouth is slightly minty from his toothpaste, and she briefly wonders if kissing him regularly would get old or if it would always feel exactly like this.

She pulls away abruptly, and without a look back at Potter or Severus, she turns on her heel, and strides away. She crosses the classroom, avoiding everyone’s wide eyes, and swings her school bag over her shoulder. “Sorry, Professor, but I’m sick. Woman problems,” she calls over her shoulder as she races out of the Potions classroom, and when she reaches the entrance hall, she breaks into a sprint, racing up flight after flight of stairs before she reaches the Fat Lady’s portrait.

“Doxy dung!” she wheezes, clutching a stitch in her side. 

“Right-o!” The Fat Lady swings open, and still breathless, Lily clambers into the portrait hole.

Inside her dormitory, she drops her bag at the door, dashing toward her trunk and sliding to a kneeling position in front of her. She lifts the lid, rummaging through the trunk, tossing out every single item in desperate search for them. _Where is it?_ Her mind screams as she finally has emptied the trunk, and she can’t find it. It’s gone. The final journal that she wrote is gone, and she sits back on her heels, the tears coming now. 

She cries until she hears the school bell, and knows that Mary and Marlene will be heading up here now to check on Lily before lunch. _Hestia saw,_ Lily thinks with a sinking feeling. Hestia saw her kiss Potter. _Everyone_ saw her kiss Potter. With a sigh, she begins to haphazardly return the things she had wrenched from the trunk back into it, wondering what she’s going to tell Mary and Marlene. She doesn’t have to wonder long—they both surge through the door as Lily closes her trunk. 

“ _What_ was that?” asked Mary.

“You kissed Potter!” exclaimed Marlene.

“In front of _Snape!”_

“In front of _everyone_!” 

“Hestia looked sooooooooo mad!” Marlene crows, throwing her head back and cackling in a way that Lily could only describe as evil. 

“Slughorn thinks you’ve gone mad,” Mary says. They both stare at Lily expectantly, and she stares back, trying to keep her eyes blank in case they betray something. 

“Lily!” they both exclaim after a moment of silence. 

“What?” she asks innocently, hoisting herself up and perching on her trunk lid. “Did you have a question?”

“Uh, yeah!” Mary cries. “ _Why_ did you kiss Potter in Potions class? And in front of Snape, who is literally obsessed with you? And then you _ran_ like a bat out of hell!”

“I wasn’t feeling well,” Lily says calmly. “Do I have a temperature?”

Marlene impatiently places her hands on Lily’s cheeks and forehead. “No, you feel fine. Now spill.”

Lily shrugs. “I just felt like a snog, I suppose.” 

“With _Potter?!”_

“Yeah, what’s the big deal? You’re _always_ saying how fit you think he is. Guess I think he’s fit, too.” Lily pauses. “But you already knew that.” She hopes she’s smiling nastily. 

Marlene and Mary both blush a brilliant red, and Lily rudely thinks, _Good. They should feel bad._

“Y’know, Lily,” Mary muses now, flopping down on her bed next to Marlene, who is twirling a piece of her shiny black hair around and around her finger. “I really didn’t think you’d do it after Hess dumped Potter, but I suppose you’ve fancied him all this time.”

Lily nods, like a liar. “Yup,” she hears herself say. “I’ve fancied him since they started dating. You’re right.”

“Okay, but you know she’s going to make your life hell, right?” Marlene looks up at Lily from the bed. “She may have ditched him for some Ministry bloke, but she still thinks she owns Potter since they were each others’ firsts.”

“How do you know she was his first?” Mary asks. 

“They don’t really pay any attention to me,” Marlene replies, gesturing to Alice and Hestia’s empty beds. “They say all kinds of things when I’m in the loo or in bed.”

Lily’s head starts to spin. “What do you think she’ll do?”

Marlene shrugs one shoulder. “She’s capable of anything.”

“We’ll protect you, Lil,” Mary says reassuringly.

“Okay, but she’s crazy,” Lily says, and she starts wondering what she’s started with Hestia when she impulsively decided to kiss Potter to get Severus to leave her alone. Was Hestia capable of murder?

* * *

After a quick lunch that Marlene and Mary bring up to her in their dormitory, Lily does actually go to the Hospital Wing. She can’t fathom facing Potter, Severus, or Hestia today after what happened this morning. She’ll have to apologize to her teachers later for missing classes, especially Professor Slughorn. 

“What’s wrong?” Madam Pomfrey says when Lily walks in. 

“I have a headache.”

“Too much fun this weekend, was it?” Pomfrey clucks, but she ushers Lily to a bed behind a screen. 

After a Pain Potion, Lily lies back on the hospital bed, and starts going back over the events of the day. Severus thought she was dating Potter. What was she going to do about that? 

Her mind wanders to the kiss. Potter’s hands warm on her back, his minty mouth, his rough chin, and how he’d lifted her up flush against him so she could feel his taut muscles against her body. She shakes her head. _What are you doing?!_ She screams to herself. _You cannot be thinking about kissing Potter!_

Right before the final school bell rings, Lily rolls off the cot, waves a farewell to Pomfrey, and returns to Gryffindor tower. When she climbs into the portrait hole, the common room seems blissfully empty until. 

“Evans.” Lily nearly jumps out of her skin, whirling around to see Potter sitting in an armchair in the corner, not at all in his usual spot directly by the fireplace.

“ _Jesus Christ_!” 

“Jeez, Evans, for Head Girl, you definitely have a filthy mouth.” He’s grinning, though, and Lily finds herself thinking about his mouth again. 

“Whatever, Potter,” she huffs. “Leave me alone.”

“Hey, wait,” Potter says now, getting up and gesturing toward the armchair across from him. “Can you sit for a minute?”

“Potter, whatever you want, can’t it wait? I’ve had the weirdest day in the history of weird days.”

“Tell me about it,” he replies, shrugging, and soon Lily finds herself seated across from James Potter in the Gryffindor common room. 

“What do you want, Potter?”

“Look, I just want to be clear that, yes, I did fancy you back in fifth year, and yeah, I was a git to you and to your—“ he pauses “—friend,” he finishes, distaste marring his very pleasant features. “And I’m flattered you’d write all that stuff about me. But Hess just ditched me, and I’m not in the place right now to be your boyfriend.”

“James Whatever-your-middle-name-is Potter, are you trying to _let me down gently_?” Lily crosses her arms across her chest now, raising an eyebrow as she appraises Potter. 

“Look, I’m flattered,” he repeats. 

“You’ve said.” Lily’s tone is dry. 

“Well, I _am!”_

Lily rolls her eyes. “Look, Potter, I already told you: I wrote that stuff last term, and that’s a long time ago to me. I don’t want you guys to get the idea that I still feel those things. I had a crush. I’m over it.”

“Wait— _guys?”_ His eyes widen with amusement. “There’s more than one romance novel?”

“It’s a _journal!_ ” Lily says through gritted teeth. “And yes.” She refuses to blush. “There are three.”

“Ah, Evans, you really do know how to wound a guy.” He pauses. “Well, who else did you write them for?”

“About! I didn’t write them _for_ anyone but myself.” 

“Okay, fine. Who did you write them about.”

“Er—Severus Snape.”

Potter looks at her stonily now. “ _Snivellus?”_

Lily closes her eyes briefly, choosing to ignore the cruel nickname that Potter and Black had tormented Severus with since their very first day of school, before they’d even set foot on school grounds. “Yes.”

“And the other?” 

“That’s private, Potter!” Lily snaps, and Potter leans back, a spasm of fear crossing his brown eyes before he smiles again.

“Ah. So that’s why you snogged me today.”

She nods. “Yes. So Severus wouldn’t think I liked _him_.”

“Well, Evans, as you know, I am always happy to help in the service of annoying Snivellus, but I gotta know: did he read your journal, too?”

Lily nods again, wiping her clammy hands on her skirt, her knee jiggling a million miles a minute. 

“Well…” Potter doesn’t seem to know what to say. “Well, good for you, Evans!”

Lily glares at him. “What?”

“Good for you for thinking fast and snogging me so you don’t end up married with little Death Eater babies to that…guy.” He falters at the end, and Lily wants to laugh except that she feels positively wretched. 

“Are you done humiliating me even more, Potter?” Lily says, starting to stand up. 

“Wait wait wait,” Potter says. “What are you going to tell Snape when it’s finally obvious that you’re not going out with me?”

“I suppose I’ll just have to tell him that you ditched me to get back together with Hestia because she has you whipped.”

Now it’s Potter’s turn to glare at her. “We are _not_ getting back together because I’m whipped, Evans.”

“That’s not what everyone keeps telling me,” Lily teases in a sing-song voice. “I hear she looked furious this morning in Potions, so I expect she’ll be asking you to get back together any day now.”

“Listen, Evans,” Potter says with a cocked eyebrow. He leans forward conspiratorially, and Lily can’t help it: she drops back into her chair, leaning forward to hear what he has to say. “What if we just…did this?”

“Did what?” Lily responds.

“Just…let people think we’re a thing. Just for a little while.”

“Why would you want that?”

“Well, for starters, Hess apparently went ballistic on Alice after she saw us snog this morning.”

Realization dawns on Lily. “You want to make her jealous.”

“Yes.” says James.

“To what end?”

“So that—“ he swallows hard. “So that we get back together.”

Lily nearly laughs, astounded at his complete change from mere moments earlier, but then she remembers what Marlene had said about Hestia being Potter’s first, and she doesn’t want to embarrass him any further by making fun of him. She knows, after all, what it feels like for your first love to betray you. 

“What’s in it for me, Potter?” 

“Well, it’ll get Snivellus off your back, for one,” Potter says. “And maybe the whole school will stop thinking you’re a frigid virgin.”

“I happen to be proud of being a frigid virgin, Potter,” Lily says coldly. _Frigid virgin?!_ “And I don’t need you to be my fake boyfriend, no matter how pathetic you think I am. I can handle Severus Snape on my own.” 

“You sure about that, Evans?”

“Positive. Piss off, Potter, and start brainstorming other ways to make Hestia love you again.” Lily turns her back on Potter, and as the school bell rings, she mounts the stairs to the dormitory, planning on hiding there until the next morning. 

* * *

_I should hide forever_ , Lily thinks as she walks into the Great Hall the next morning. Like all juicy gossip at Hogwarts, the news that she kissed James Potter in Potions, in front of Professor Slughorn _and_ Potter’s ex-girlfriend had indeed made its way to every member of the student body. When Lily enters, flanked on either side by Mary and Marlene, whispers break out like small fires at every single table. Various pairs of eyes follow Lily, looking at her with a mix of jealousy and admiration or sometimes both.

Hestia is giving Lily a look of pure loathing, and two tables over, Severus sits low in his seat, for once sitting alone and not with the degenerates he calls his friends. From the staff table, the teachers shoot covert glances at Lily before resuming their breakfasts. Lily sees that Professor Slughorn isn’t there this morning, and she remembers that he does sometimes like to take breakfast in his office. 

As Lily passes Potter and the Marauders, Sirius Black whooped with admiration. “Nice work, Evans!” he hoots, and then winks at Marlene. “And good morning to you, McKinnon.”

“’Morning!” Marlene says airily, but Lily can tell she’s pleased that Sirius greeted her specifically. 

Potter avoids Lily’s eyes, but she can see his cheeks are red and she thinks that this might be the first time he seems sufficiently embarrassed because of something someone else did to him—in this case, Lily kissing him. Usually, he was the one pulling pranks that embarrassed others. Lily suddenly felt a surge of fierce pride in herself for giving Potter a taste of his own medicine. 

“Everyone is staring at me,” Lily mutters as she sits directly where the huge burn is at the Gryffindor table. “Even the Hufflepuffs. Oh, bollocks, can’t they mind their own business?”

“That’s what happens when you snog Hogwarts’ most eligible bachelor in front of an entire Double Potions class.” Mary hands Lily a platter of scrambled eggs, and Lily shovels some on her plate. 

“Have you talked to Potter since yesterday?” Marlene asks, pouring herself some water and taking a huge swig. 

“No,” Lily lies. “No chance to. I was in the Hospital Wing until after classes.” She doesn’t remember how or when lying to her friends came this easily to her. 

“So, what, are you two dating now?” Mary says, looking up at Lily, who had just stuffed her mouth full of eggs. 

She holds up a finger, swallows, and then says, “I’m going to go apologize to Professor Slughorn. See you at Defense.”

“Lily!” Mary protests, but Lily has already slipped out of her seat and is nearly out the door. 

When Lily knocks on Professor Slughorn’s door, he says, “Come in,” from within. She pushes the door open, and indeed sees the Potions Master enjoying a full fry up at his desk. “Hello, Miss Evans!” he chortles, his huge belly jiggling.

“Good morning, Professor.” Lily takes a seat across from him, his huge desk in between them, covered in Potions essays. Lily recognizes her own handwriting among the stacks, a piece she had done two weeks ago on the properties of antidotes. “I, er, just wanted to apologize about yesterday.”

“Oh, my girl, it’s nothing!” Slughorn gives her an appraising sort of look. “But I must say, I was saddened to see that you and young Severus weren’t doing this assignment together. It would have been a perfect ending to both your time as Potions prodigies here at Hogwarts.”

“We thought we’d spread the expertise around,” Lily replies lamely. 

“And I daresay you wanted to be with your boyfriend?” Slughorn’s eyes twinkle now, and Lily has to look away because this is _so_ uncomfortable. 

“Er, well, he’s not my—“

“No matter, my dear,” Slughorn says jovially. “I’m certain you and Mr. Potter will turn in a perfectly well done project. I’m counting on you to show the other students how it’s done.”

“Thank you, Professor.” Lily beams. “Well, I should get to Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

“Go on, then,” Slughorn says, turning his attention back to his sausages. 

On the steps, Severus is skulking, as if he’s been waiting for her.

“Did you follow me?” Lily looks at him suspiciously. 

“No! I didn’t know you were coming down here.” He can’t meet her eyes as he says this, instead choosing to scuff the toe of his boot against the rough hewn stone of the steps. 

She shrugs and starts her ascent, but Severus grabs her hand to stop her. “Let go of me, Sev,” she says quietly, and his eyes widen at the sound of the old nickname. 

“Did you mean what you wrote?” he asks.

“Which part?”

“The part where you’d take me back if I left them all behind?”

He _had_ read it all then. Lily looks down into his eyes, and in them, she sees a kind of desperation that she hasn’t seen in years, not even when he kissed her the other night in the library. She sees true remorse in those eyes, and she wonders if he’s remembering that day down by the lake and what he’d said when she had tried to help him. She’s remembering how they had said they loved each other in the Potions classroom, and how after yesterday, Severus wasn’t the only person she had kissed down there. She had kissed James Potter, the person who had once made their lives miserable, in the same room where she’d told Severus she loved him. Her face suddenly burns with shame. 

“I—“ she looks at her hand in Severus’s, and she thinks, _yes. I meant it all._ But she says, “It was a long time ago, Sev.”

He flushes now, dropping her hand like it’s scalding. “So you and Potter are…it’s serious?”

Lily shakes her head, more out of instinct than any strategic reason. She doesn’t even know what she’s going to say before she says it. “We fought last night,” she blurts out. “I’m pretty sure it’s over.”

“Oh? That’s not what he was telling the lads this morning.”

She tries not to let her astonishment show. “What was he telling them this morning?”

“Before you got to breakfast, he was telling a group of Quidditch blokes that you finally realized you had a thing for him and that you’re dating now. He said he’s never stopped fancying you and that’s why he’s not with Hestia anymore.”

 _Interesting._ “Oh. Well, I guess we’re still good then.” Above their heads, the first bell rings, and Lily says, “I have Defense.”

“Bye, Lily.” 

“Bye, Sev.” 

She is very nearly late to Defense Against the Dark Arts. Silently, she slides into an empty seat behind Mary and Marlene, pulling out her DADA book and being painfully aware that all their other classmates are trying to pretend like they aren’t staring at her and wondering why she didn’t take the very obvious empty seat next to Potter. Potter himself turns around to stare pointedly at her, jerking his head toward the chair next to him. Lily sighs, gathers her things and, avoiding Mary and Marlene’s astonished gazes, sits right next to Potter, who smiles a bit too smugly for her taste. 

“Why--“ she hisses from behind gritted teeth. “—did you tell everyone that we’re…an item?”

“An _item_?” Potter chuckles quietly. 

“You _know_ what I mean.” 

“Look, you should be thanking me, Evans, that I’m helping you get Snivellus off your back. I did you a favor. I could have just denied it entirely, and then where would you be?”

Lily sighs in frustration. He’s right. “Well, why didn’t you deny it, then?”

“Miss Evans, do you have something you’d like to share with the rest of the class?” Professor Rial has her arms crossed and is glaring at Lily. 

“No, Professor,” Lily says, and it feels like the whole class titters. She feels a hot flush creeping up her neck. 

“We’ll talk later,” Potter whispers next to Lily. 

After class, however, Potter leaves the classroom with his friends while Mary and Marlene waylay Lily in the hallway before she can follow Potter and demand some answers. 

“ _What_ _in Merlin’s pants is going on?”_ Marlene has a hold like a grindylow on Lily’s upper arm, and is positively steering her toward a semi-private alcove near the rudest suit of armor at Hogwarts. The suit lets out a fart noise as Mary and Marlene crowd Lily into the alcove. “Oh, shut it!” Marlene snarls at the suit, and it quiets instantly. 

“Lily!” Mary exclaims. “Are you dating Potter or what?”

Lily swallows. “I…don’t know.”

“How can you not know?” Mary raises her eyebrow skeptically. 

“We haven’t talked since yesterday!”

“You seemed pretty chummy today,” Marlene says with a wiggle of her eyebrows. Lily rolls her eyes. 

“We barely talked.”

“The Gryffindors have Quidditch practice tonight. Sirius told me. Go talk to him there.”

 _That’s not a half bad idea,_ Lily thinks as they finally release her from the alcove and begin the walk to Transfiguration together. 

* * *

Lily’s never been on the Quidditch pitch. During House matches, she sits in the stands, and she’s never been the type to rush the pitch after a win. Even when Gryffindor won the Quidditch Cup last year, she opted to stay in the stands and cheer with Mary as Marlene and the rest of Gryffindor house mobbed the team on the pitch. 

_It’s huge_ , she thinks as she stands there that evening in her forest green jumper and her oldest, softest jeans. After dinner had started, Lily had slipped out the front doors on Marlene’s instructions, and wandered across the grounds, hoping to catch Potter as practice ended. Now she watches as seven players clad in their scarlet training gear do flying drills above her head, each shooting through the air at a speed that makes her a bit queasy. She can hear Potter shouting instructions, offering advice and walking them through the next drill. Finally, she hears the whistle that indicates the end of practice. She’s leaning on a goalpost, watching as the Gryffindor Quidditch team lands several yards away from her, looking windswept and exhausted. 

“Hey!” Lily calls out. “Hey, Potter!” 

He turns, his brow furrowed in confusion. For a moment, Lily cannot speak. For all her resistance, James Potter was _fit_. His scarlet and gold Quidditch jersey clings to his lean torso, soaked through with sweat, and his hair is in disarray in a way that makes him look even more handsome. His cheeks are pink with exertion, and when he walks toward her, she can see the muscles in his legs moving in a way that makes her heart skip a beat. 

“What’s up, Evans?”

Lily glances over Potter’s shoulder as the squad watches their captain with open mouths. “Can’t you call them off?” She indicates to them. 

“Wh—oh. Yeah.” He turns. “Oy! Hit the showers or I’ll make you run more laps!” Grumbling, they begin to scarper off, leaving Potter to look quizzically at Lily while she stares at him in silence. “Evans. Did you come to Quidditch practice just to stare at me?”

“Wh—oh. No.” Lily swallows hard, then. “Let’s do this.”

“Do what?”

“You know. Date.”

His eyes widen behind his glasses, and he readjusts his grip on his broom. “Evans, no offense, but I don’t want to date you.”

“I mean, _fake_ date. You know, like you said yesterday.”

Potter starts laughing maniacally, and it takes all of Lily’s self-control not to smack him as hard as she can. “So, you can’t handle Snivellus on your own after all, can you?”

Lily toes the ground with her trainer, then nods. Potter sobers significantly, clearing his throat. 

“Okay,” he says. “Actually, this is perfect because it’s driving Hestia mad not knowing what’s going on with us, and this will drive her even madder. And Snape—he’ll believe it, right?”

“Yes. He’ll definitely believe it.”

“Okay, but you also have to keep Hestia from murdering me,” Lily says. “I don’t want to be collateral damage in your epic love story.” 

“Don’t worry about her. She’d never hurt a fly.”

“I know her, too, Potter, and I can tell you that she would hurt more than a fly, and she’s perfectly capable of killing me considering we _sleep in the same room._ ”

Realization dawns on him. “Oh, yeah. You were friends back in the day. I forgot.”

“How lucky for you,” Lily responsds, while crossing her arms. 

He tilts his head now, looking down at her. “Okay, Evans, we’ll date.”

“Fake date,” Lily clarifies. 

“Fake date,” he agrees. “But Evans—“ and now his voice has taken on a teasing tone. “—this is strictly business, alright? We can’t have any falling in love happening.”

Lily laughs condescendingly. “Oh, I can assure you that you are most definitely not my type, Potter. There’s no worrying about that.”

Potter grins now, and before she knows what’s happening, his arm is around her waist with his warm hand pressed into her back, the other hand comes to her face, and without any warning, James Potter is kissing her on the Quidditch pitch. 

It’s different than before. He smells sweaty now, but it’s intoxicating to her. His mouth is still minty, but now it’s open and warm, and instinctively, she opens her mouth under his, and feels his tongue dart against her lips. Tentatively, she reaches out to touch the front of his jersey, resting a gentle hand on his chest only to feel his heart hammering underneath her palm. She’s unsurprised to discover that her heart is doing the same.

Then, she hears applause, and they spring apart. The Quidditch team is still there, off the pitch, but they’re applauding now, and Sirius Black lets out a wolf whistle that Lily is certain carried to the very top of Gryffindor Tower. 

“What did I say?” Potter roars, and now they’re positively sprinting for the locker rooms.

“You knew they were there,” Lily says accusingly. 

“Well, yeah,” he says, lifting one shoulder carelessly. “Gotta snog to make it real for the school, you know.”

“Okay, we have to set some ground rules because I don’t know if—“

“Meet me after dinner in the prefect meeting room, alright?” Potter says. He scoops up his broomstick, shouldering it, and giving her a grin that she thinks may never be wiped from her memory. “We’ll set whatever ground rules you want there. I have to go pretend to yell at my team, and then take a very real shower.”

Lily nods, watching him jog after his team before she proceeds back to the castle. 

* * *

“Okay, first of all, you can’t kiss me anymore.”

Potter scoffs. “Not a soul is going to believe we’re dating if I’m not allowed to touch you, Evans.”

“We only need _two_ people to believe us,” Lily reminds him from her seat at one of the prefect desks. 

He rolls his eyes. “I can promise that Snivelly isn’t going to get over you if he never sees someone snog you, Evans.”

“Okay, but—“ She waves her hands around aimlessly. “—isn’t there something else we can do to convince people?”

“Can I kiss you on the cheek?” he asks. “And vice versa?”

Lily thinks about this for a moment. “Sure.” 

“What’s the deal with...you and snogging, anyway?”

Lily blushes. “Well, if you _must_ know—“

“I must.”

“I’ve never really had a boyfriend before so I want to…do those things for real. With my _real_ boyfriend.” She feels her face flaming, and she looks up at Potter, fully expecting him to laugh in her face. But he doesn’t. His expression is unreadable, and Lily feels a bit like she’s being x-rayed. 

“Okay.” He nods. “Okay. So we’ll make sure you get those firsts with someone.”

“Thank you.”

“Okay, the next rule is the _most_ important, Evans,” Potter says, carelessly kicking his heels back into the desk with dull thunks. “So pay attention.”

“Is it that I always have to laugh at your jokes?” Lily rolls her eyes. “Because then I want to add a rule that says that your jokes have to be funny.”

“Shut it, Evans. The rule is that you have to wear my Quidditch jersey during our matches. Which you have to attend.”

Her eyes widen, remembering his clinging, sweaty jersey from earlier this evening. “Don’t make me!”

“You have to,” he insists. “It’s not believable otherwise. And you have to fly the banner.”

Horror fills her stomach now. “No way, Potter.”

He grins evilly. “That’s right, Evans. You are now--” He reaches back into his school bag, pulling out a folded up cloth and brandishing it before her. “— _Potter’s Number 1 Fan.”_

Lily groans, rubbing her forehead. “I’m going to look like a right berk wearing your jersey and flying that rubbish.” 

“Yes, but a berk who is dating _me.”_ Potter wads up the heinous banner and tosses it to Lily, who catches it and sets it down unceremoniously. 

“Okay, my turn.” She takes a deep breath. “You have to stop bullying Snape.”

He frowns. “I don’t bully him.” A pause. “Not as much as I used to.” He blushes now, a crimson so red that he nearly matches his scarlet Gryffindor t-shirt. 

“No,” she agrees. “That’s true. But you still call him Snivellus, and that’s not fair. He’s never done anything to you.”

He hops lightly off the desk now, leaning now so that his face is close to Lily’s. “Do you know what he is?” he whispers. Lily feels a chill down her spine. “What he wants to do to…” his eyes rake her face “…people like you?”

“No one knows if those rumors are true.” She stares back into his brown eyes defiantly, her gaze unrelenting.

“He could put the rumors to rest easily.”

“I don’t care. I want you to stop.”

His eyes harden for the briefest moment, and Lily feels his grip tighten on the edges of the desk at which she’s seated. But then his expression changes, back to arrogant toerag Potter, and he says, “Fine. But you have to room next to me at Stonehenge.”

“What? Why?” she exclaims.

“Because it’s what couples do on the trip so they can sneak into each other’s room more easily.”

“Potter, if you think I’ll be sneaking into your room…”

He rolls his eyes. “We won’t be _doing_ anything,” he says. “But we want people to think we’re doing things.”

They both agree that the other has to spend time with the others’ friends. “Maybe if McKinnon and Sirius get together officially, it won’t be a total loss,” Potter comments as an aside. Lily silently agrees; if their arrangement allowed Marlene and Sirius to spend more time together, it would be an added bonus for all parties involved. Marlene would probably never fight with Lily again. That thought pleases Lily more than she ever thought it would. 

“Wait, Potter—“ Lily says as he starts to make moves like he’s ready to leave. “How long are we doing this for?”

“As long as we need to, Evans.”

“I think we should set an end date. Christmas holidays?”

“I seriously doubt Sni—I mean, _Snape—_ is going to be over his little crush by the holidays.”

She sees his point. 

“Okay, what about January 29?” Lily offers.

Potter ponders this for a moment, then nods. “Okay.” He shrugs. “Whatever you want, Evans.”

“Wait, sorry, one more thing. Should you call me Lily?” She feels her cheeks warm slightly. “You know, to make it believable.”

His face breaks into a huge grin, and Lily almost wants to laugh at his earnestness. “You got it…Lily.” He shakes himself a bit. “That felt _weird_!”

“Get used to it…James.” She fake shudders. “You’re right—so weird.”

“Let’s just do it in public then.” Potter stands up, holding out his hand. “Now let’s leave here holding hands just in case someone spots us.” Lily takes his hand begrudgingly, then drops it. 

“Hang on,” she says. “Wait, I have one more stipulation.”

He huffs, running a hand through his hair and making it stand on end. “What now?”

She looks down at her feet, and then back up at him. “Will you teach me to fly?”

Now he smiles widely in a way that Lily has never seen him smile at her before. “I thought you’d never ask.”

No one sees them emerge from the prefects’ meeting room that night, and as Lily dozes off that night, she wonders what people are going to say when they see her walking down the corridors, hand-in-hand with James Potter. 

* * *

The next morning, Lily stands in front of the mirror in the loo, looking at herself. 

_Do I look like James Potter’s girlfriend,_ she wonders, touching her cheek lightly. She thinks about Hestia, how she always looks flawless and put together. Lily doesn’t think she’s bad looking, but she wonders if she could put a bit more effort into her daily routine. She finally decides to put on some light pink lipstick and fluffs her curls before heading down to breakfast with Mary and Marlene. 

Potter is waiting for her in the entrance hall. “Hey,” he calls out, jogging lightly over to them. His tie is slightly crooked, Lily notes. 

“Hey,” Lily replies, studiously avoiding her friends’ gazes as Marlene’s jaw drops and Mary’s eyes widen in surprise. 

“Hello.” Potter smiles down at Lily, then bends down to lightly kiss her cheek. “Want to have breakfast with me?” 

If Marlene’s mouth could open any wider, it would have. Lily has a feeling she’s not going to be able to worm her way out of giving them answers later, and makes a mental note to ask Potter what their story is anyway. But right now, she smiles widely up at the Head Boy and says, “Sure. You don’t mind, do you?” She turns to the two girls behind her and tilts her head. Marlene at least has the decency to shut her mouth. 

“You guys can join,” Potter offers nonchalantly. Lily feels a rush of gratitude toward him for including them. 

“You know, I think we will,” Mary says before Marlene can say anything. “Thank you, James.”

“Anything for my pal McKinnon here,” James teases, making Marlene blush a purplish shade that Lily has never seen on her friend. 

As they approach the Great Hall, James grabs Lily’s hand, intertwining her fingers in his. She tries not to look surprised, as if they do this everyday. Her heart is hammering in her chest, and she wonders if he’s feeling the same way. Mary and Marlene are ahead of them, and Lily suddenly pulls on James’s arm, holding him back.

“What’s up?” he asks, looking down at her. His eyes are sparkling behind his glasses. He seems to be enjoying this entirely too much. Lily takes a deep breath. 

“Nothing. Sorry.”

He gives her hand a reassuring squeeze, and she feels a twinge of irritation. She doesn’t need reassurance from _him_. As they stroll into the Great Hall, Lily watches as a dozen pairs of eyes register what they’re seeing. After years of pining after Lily Evans, it certainly seemed that James Potter had got her. Elbows go into ribs, hands clutch wrists, and people start craning their necks. Lily resists the urge to blush, allowing James to lead her to where he usually sits with his friends. She doesn’t look toward the Slytherin table, knowing that if she had, a pair of black eyes would be narrowed in disgust at her. 

“After you,” James says, allowing Lily to take a seat before squeezing himself in between her and Peter Pettigrew. 

“Where’s Moony?” James inquires, beginning to load up his plate. 

“Hospital Wing,” Peter says, staring at James. “Er, Prongs—“ he looks at his friend. “—what’s happening here right now?”

“These birds sit with us now?” Sirius asks, grinning at Marlene. “Since when?”

“Since Lily became my girlfriend,” James replies. He looks around. “Anyone got a problem with that?”

“Congratulations,” Sirius says dryly. “After three full years of pining—“

“Welcome, ladies,” Peter interrupts smoothly, smiling at the three girls. “It’s a pleasure to breakfast with you after seven years of not breakfasting with you.”

James coughs into a napkin, looking embarrassed but recovering quickly.

“So…is anyone going to tell us how this happened?” Mary looks between James and Lily, her eyes betraying nothing. 

“Yes. I, too, am curious since I’m his best friend, and he hasn’t said a word to me.” Black leans back in his seat, resting his head in his clasped hands behind his head. 

“Yeah, let’s hear it,” Marlene says, a huge smile on her face. 

Lily glances at James, who takes a sip of coffee before clearing his throat. “There’s nothing to tell,” he says finally. 

“Bollocks!” cry Marlene and Sirius at the same time. 

“There’s really not,” Lily says. “It happened really fast. Like, last week.”

“After the prefect meeting,” James says. “I rescued Ev—Lily, I mean, from that tosser Snape.”

Sirius’s expression hardens. “What did _he_ want?”

“Nothing!” Lily wants to get a hold on this story before it spirals out of control. “He just wanted to see if I’d do the Potions practical with him, that’s all.”

James nods. “Right. And then we just got to talking and then—“

“We started dating,” Lily states with a kind of finality. 

“Oh, is _that_ why you snogged in Potions then?” Peter asks. 

James grins. “Cheers, Wormtail.”

“Okay, what is _up_ with these nicknames?” Marlene asks, and then Potter and his mates are weaving a complicated tale of a night in third year and some butterbeer, and Lily finally relaxes enough to eat a piece of toast and have some coffee, looking down the Gryffindor table longingly at her usual spot. 

Without warning, James puts his arm around Lily, giving her a little squeeze, but then he leaves his arm there. She turns to smile at him, but catches someone’s eye. It’s Hestia. She’s sitting next to Alice down the opposite end of the table. Hestia’s eyes flash with something that Lily can’t recognize, as she leans over to whisper something to Alice, who in turn looks at Lily with surprise. But Lily can only focus on Hestia, who returns her stare. A chilling smile spreads across her face mimicking a predator toying with their prey. Then, Lily does something even she didn’t think herself capable of. She turns her body slightly so that she’s snug against James’s side, secured under his arm. If he’s surprised, it doesn’t register. 

Lily flicks her eyes to James, then back to Hestia, who has turned away from Lily and is talking intently to Alice. Lily feels a sense of wild satisfaction for some reason, and this only intensifies when James leans down to whisper in her ear. “You’re doing great.”

She feels eyes on her back, and she knows without a doubt that Severus is watching her scoot closer to Potter, watching as he whispers something in her ear, as he tightens his arm around her body. She wonders if his miscreant friends are watching her, too. Her, a Muggleborn—a _Mudblood_ , she thinks darkly—under the arm of James Potter, a Pureblood wizard from one of the oldest families in their world. Lily feels a flood of savage pleasure knowing that they are likely _infuriated._

The bell rings. “Oh, bollocks,” Sirius mutters. “Another day of bloody classes.”

“We _are_ in school,” Peter points out. 

“Shall we?” James says, standing up and reaching out a hand to Lily. She takes it, and he maneuvers her toward the door with a hand on the small of her back, right where her cardigan meets the top of her skirt. She has to admit that it’s not terrible having tall, handsome James Potter’s warm hand on her back, guiding her through the throngs of students and out the front doors, taking her hand as they head toward the greenhouses. She can feel other students watching her curiously in a way that they’ve never watched her before. For the first time in her life, she feels _seen_ to other people in a way that she’s never been seen before. Yes, she is Head Girl, and yes, Potter’s attentions to her did once make her an object of mild interest to others, but something has fundamentally changed in how she is viewed by the Hogwarts student body. 

She ruminates on this all day, during Herbology and then Potions, through lunch where she and her friends sit with the Marauders and, and finally, when the final school bell rings, she thinks she may have it figured out. James Potter, inarguably one of the most popular boys at their school, who could have the pick of any girlfriend, had chosen _her_ —at least they thought he had chosen her. And that made them wonder: what does he see in her that we haven’t seen? This conclusion makes Lily feel even more confused—she thinks she’s already plenty interesting, but somehow no one noticed until she became Potter’s girlfriend. 

That night in the library, a group of sixth year Gryffindor girls walk by as Lily, Mary, and Marlene are poring over their Defense Against the Dark Arts homework. The sixth year girls stop at Lily’s table and stare. 

“Can we help you?” Marlene snarls. “If you’re just going to stand there and stare, you better clear off before I hex you into oblivion.”

“What’s going on with you and James Potter?” one of the girls pipes up. “I heard you’re dating.”

Lily stares at her. “Do I know you?” she finally says. 

“Yeah, I’m Hazel,” the girl replies. 

“Well, you heard right,” Marlene snaps. “Now clear off!”

The girls move along, but not before Lily overhears one of them say, “Y’know, she’s actually kind of pretty when you look at her.”

“AND STAY AWAY!” Mary calls after them. They scamper off. 

“Don’t listen to them, Lil,” Marlene says, patting Lily’s hand. “Little bints haven’t got the sense of a flobberworm.”

“They kind of have a point,” Lily says quietly. “Why would he—“

“He has been obsessed with you since fourth year at _least_ ,” Mary says in a sharp voice. “And now you’re dating. They’re just jealous.”

“Plus, that Hazel is a slag and a half!” Marlene says loudly, trying to make sure that the girls hear everything she’s saying. “She’s been trying to get into Potter’s trousers since last year.”

Lily shakes her head, wondering how on earth she suddenly became an object of fascination at Hogwarts simply by pretending to date a boy. 

That night, she finds a note on her pillow. She opens it. 

_Dear Lily,_

_Nice job today._

_James_

* * *

As it turns out, there isn’t much to dating James Potter. She sits with him most mealtimes, and on the evenings when they don’t have Head duties or he has Quidditch practice, they study together in their common room or the library. They hold hands in the corridor, and do their Potions project together. Sometimes, he’ll kiss her cheek, but usually only if Severus or Hestia is in the same room. If he’s in a particularly good mood, he’ll toss an arm over her shoulder and pull her in close so she can smell his very boyish smell: a combination of spearmint toothpaste and oranges that makes her wonder if he always has the fruit hiding in his robe pocket. 

On Halloween, they’re in Potions when he asks her. 

“There’s a party tonight in the castle,” he says in a low voice as they bend their heads over their cauldron, watching as the ginger they just dropped into their Veritaserum splits into a thousand pieces and slowly settles to the bottom. “Come with me.”

“We have rounds,” she reminds him. “And how would it look for the Head Boy and Girl to show up to an illegal party?”

He snickers. “Illegal party? What’s an illegal party?”

“A party that none of the teachers know about, I mean.” She blushes. 

“Come on, Evans,” he says. “People will expect me to show up. And they’ll expect my girlfriend to be there.”

“Well, I hope you can get a girlfriend in time then.”

He glares at her. “Fine,” he says shortly. “Don’t go.”

“Are you actually mad at me right now?”

He shakes his head as he carefully stirs the contents of the cauldron. “Kind of! The deal was—“

“Okay, shhh!” Lily hisses, looking around frantically. Both Hestia and Severus look away quickly, and Lily knows she’s caught them watching her. “Okay, _fine._ I’ll go.”

He cheers up almost immediately. “Excellent,” he says, and smacks a kiss on her cheek. 

“But it has to be _after_ we do rounds, okay? And I’m bringing my Sobering Solution to the party.”

He grins. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

At midnight, Lily meets James in the Gryffindor common room, and they start their rounds. 

“You look nice,” he comments, gesturing toward her. She’s wearing a soft black jumper that she got for Christmas last year, and a short skirt over her polka dot stockings. Her hair is wound into a bun atop her head. 

“Thanks,” she replies, nervously tugging on the hem of her skirt. “You don’t think my skirt is too short? I borrowed it from Mary.” 

He stares at her. “Evans, I am not the right person to be asking if your skirt is too bloody short, alright?”

She punches his arm. “You sod!” But she’s laughing. 

“Does Sirius have any other plans with Marlene tonight?” Lily asks innocently as they start their hourlong patrol. 

Potter glances over at her. “You know I can’t tell you that, right? Padfoot would kill me.”

Lily chuckles, then shakes her head. “Do you think they know?”

“Know what?”

She gestures widely. “That this is…”

“Fake?” 

She nods. He thinks for a moment. “No,” he says finally. “I don’t think they think us capable of lying to them. I know Padfoot is going to be right pissed when he finds out it’s all a ploy.”

“Maybe if you tell him it’s to annoy Severus, it’ll cheer him up.”

“That will _definitely_ cheer him up,” James agrees.

They walk in companionable silence for a few moments before Lily speaks. “How am I, er, doing?”

“What do you mean?” He looks around the empty corridor they’re patrolling. “Fine. We haven’t run into any trouble yet, and I know you’ve got plenty of your Sobering Solution to go around.”

“Not that!” Lily exclaims. “I mean…how am I doing as your pretend girlfriend?”

“Oh.” He pauses. “Are you asking for notes, Evans?” It’s dark, but Lily can tell that he’s on the verge of laughing. 

“I mean, _kind of_!” She lightly digs an elbow into his ribs. “Come on, I know you _have_ notes. You just _love_ telling everyone what to do.”

“Are you sure you’re not talking about you?”

“Come _on_ , Potter! Spill!”

He holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, okay! Hold your hippogriffs! Let me think.” He pauses. “Okay, on the O.W.L. scale, I’d give you an A.”

“Acceptable?!” Lily gapes. “I got all E’s and O’s on my O.W.L.s, Potter!”

“Well, like Snape likes to say—“ and he adopts Severus’s slow way of speaking here. “— _there’s a first time for everything.”_ He sounds so much like him that Lily takes an inadvertent step away. 

“So…what can I do to improve?"

“Hmmmm.” He pretends to think. “It would be nice if you smiled more while we were together.”

“It’s not my fault you’re such a prat that I look miserable when we’re together!"

“You’re smiling plenty now!” he points out. Lily is glad it’s dark because her cheeks heat up. 

“Okay, smile more. What else?”

He shrugs. “Why don’t you give _me_ some pointers?”

“You don’t need pointers. You’ve had a girlfriend before!”

“And look how that turned out.”

“Well, I suppose you could—“ She thinks about the last few days, how wildly different her life had become as she transformed into James Potter’s girlfriend. “You never told me what you did last Thursday night.”

“Wait, what?”

“You did your rounds, and then came to the common room, remember? And I was in there reading?” 

He nods. 

“And then you left, and didn’t return until after I’d gone to bed. And then the next morning, you and your mates all looked so tired.”

“Oh.” Is he blushing? It’s too dark to tell. They’re on a staircase now, walking down to the third floor. “I can’t tell you that, Evans.”

“Why not?” she teases. “I’m your girlfriend, remember?”

“Yeah, but a man needs his secrets!”

“It’s weird that you won’t just tell me,” Lily says. “Were you doing something illegal?”

“Do you actually want the answer for that question?” He speaks softly, and Lily realizes that she’s crossed a boundary that she never intended to cross. She thought he’d tell her he was snogging some witch in an empty classroom, or that he and his mates spent the evening drinking. She didn’t expect this level of secrecy, this code of silence between him and his mates that she hadn’t realized was unbreakable. She’s not sure that she has this kind of secrecy with anyone except, well, herself. 

“Sorry,” she mutters, avoiding his gaze as she peeks behind a statue that is well known to hide snogging students. 

The rest of the hour passes easily, with James and Lily chatting during most of it. They do find two Hufflepuff fifth years snogging in the Charms classroom. They don’t dock points, but Potter promises to do as much if they catch them again. 

Potter then checks his watch and says, “Okay, it’s one in the morning. Can we go to this party now?”

She nods. “Where is this party?” 

“Near the Ravenclaw common room,” he replies. 

“How do you know where the Ravenclaw common room is?” She raises an eyebrow skeptically as they mount stairs that lead to the seventh floor. 

“The Marauders know all, Evans.”

“Why don’t you ever get caught?”

“We get caught a lot.”

“I bet you do way more bad stuff than just the stuff you get caught for.”

He shrugs, grinning guiltily. “Busted.” Slowly, they approach the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and his troll ballet class.

Lily looks confused. “It’s here?”

“Hang on,” Potter says, reaching out for her and taking her hand. Gently, he pulls her toward him. 

“What the—“ Lily says as his arms go around her and then his hands are in her hair, and he’s pulling her hair loose. “What the fuck, Potter.”

He grins sheepishly. “It looks better down.” He lightly fluffs it, and Lily isn’t sure why she’s allowing this except that it’s been ages since a boy touched her hair and she remembers what she wrote in the journal that is now Potter’s possession. _I wonder how it would feel if you touched my hair._ Is he thinking about that part, too? The thought makes her head hurt, so she stops. 

“Now, close your eyes,” he instructs. She looks at him dubiously. He chuckles. “Trust me.” 

“Fine.” She closes her eyes, hears him whisper slightly next to her, and then—

“Open your eyes, Evans.”

Where before there was just a bare wall, there in front of her is a door. It’s blue, like the color of the sky on a clear summer day. And from the other side of the door…

“Is that music?” She looks at Potter in wonder, and he grins. 

“Let’s go, _girlfriend._ ” He opens the door, and Lily can’t help it: her jaw drops. 

There is a room behind the door (which was previously just a wall), and it is positively packed with students. As Lily closes the door behind her, it materializes out of sight. She turns to look around. There is a _stage_ with a live band. There’s a bar where she’s pretty sure a sixth year prefect is bartending, and then there is James Potter, who seems to rule this kingdom. 

He greets _everyone_. He seems to have a kind word for every single person he encounters, clapping boys on the back and giving girls hugs. All the while, he’s holding tight to Lily’s hand as she smiles awkwardly at all his friends. 

“Do you know all these people?” she whispers to him, but he doesn’t hear her. At last, she spots Marlene sitting on a sofa with some other girls in their year. Their eyes meet, and Marlene waves. 

“Lily!” she calls. “Come sit with us!”

Lily moves toward them, thinking James is right behind her, but he’s talking intently to a boy Lily recognizes as a Chaser on the Hufflepuff Quidditch Team, and she knows he may be a while. She turns to head toward Marlene, then stiffens when she sees who else is there. In addition to prefects Alison Lee and Dawn Shacklebolt, Marlene is sitting with Alice and Hestia. There are some other girls scattered about. Marlene gives Lily a meaningful look, eyeing the empty seat next to her. Lily sighs. Crossing the room feels like crossing a very great distance, though it’s just a few feet. 

“Hey, Lily!” Alison greets Lily warmly, standing up to give her a hug. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Ha, ha, yes, I’m as surprised as you are,” Lily replies, plopping down next to Marlene. “Hi.” She gives generic little wave to everyone. Hestia rolls her eyes, but everyone else is perfectly cordial to her. 

“So, we’re all dying to know—“ Emmeline Vance, a seventh-year from Hufflepuff, leans in to Lily conspiratorially. “—what’s going on with you and Potter?”

Lily glances at Hestia, who is looking bored with the conversation while sipping a drink. “Oh, er—“ She racks her brain for the story they shared with their friends at breakfast. “It’s happened really fast. We agreed to do the Potions practical together and then—“

“And then you started dating a few days later?” Hestia speaks finally, her voice smoothly cutting in. 

Lily swallows. “Yes.”

“So how long has it been?” Alison asks. 

“Oh, just a few days.”

“How many days?” Alice presses, and Lily knows that Hestia has authorized Alice to ask this question. It’s an important one.

“The day Gryffindor won the Quidditch match,” Lily says automatically, remembering that Hestia couldn’t be found that day. “We played Exploding Snap together. Marlene was there.” She makes a mental note to tell Potter that this is their origin story. 

Next to her, Marlene perks up. “Oh, yes. Instant, erm, sparks.”

“How cute,” Hestia says with no hint of sincerity in her voice. Lily’s stomach falls, and she knows she’s messed up somehow. Part of Hestia’s inherent charm lies in how she responds to other people. When she is your friend, she is your _best friend._ Lily remembers back when they used to be close. Hestia would always take Lily’s side when she and Marlene argued, and there were times when she’d argue with Marlene on Lily’s behalf. Once in fourth year, when an older student called Lily a Mudblood, Hestia had set a Stinging Hex on him that was so powerful that it left a permanent mark on his arm. You wanted to be near her, to sit next to her, to have her laugh at your jokes, and let her braid your hair. Like James, she carried around with her an affability that seemed to draw people to her, but that’s where the similarities between James Potter and Hestia Jones ended. Where Potter was goofy, warm, and friendly, Hestia could be calculating, ruthless, and cruel. When she was your friend, she used these traits against those who would hurt you. 

But when Hestia decided you couldn’t be in her orbit any longer, she used these traits as weapons against you. Where once it had been warm, now it was cold. For Lily, it often felt colder because she’d _known_ that warmth. She knew what it was like to have Hestia on your side, and so she knew that when Hestia decided that Lily and her friends were no longer welcome in her inner circle, it was a Big Deal. 

That Marlene and Mary had taken Lily’s side had felt like a small miracle. After being rejected by her sister and Snape, Lily had started to develop a complex that she was distinctly unlovable. Now Mary, Marlene, and Lily were their own galaxy—three distinct planets, spinning in orbit together and sometimes bumping into each other, but always, always in chorus. Looking at Marlene now, Lily feels the sudden urge to pull her friend aside and spill everything--the journals, Severus, her fake boyfriend. How would Marlene react? And Mary? Would they ditch her, too? Lily can’t stomach the thought of being completely alone at Hogwarts, and so she refocuses on the girls around her.

“Well, good for you, Lily,” Dawn says with a rude smirk directed at Hestia. “He’s been obsessed with you for ages.”

Hestia’s face hardens at this comment, her mouth a thin, pale line. Lily remembers this look, how her face had hardened toward Lily that fateful afternoon of their O.W.L. exams. She shivers a bit remembering that afternoon, how uneventful it could have been if it hadn’t been for Potter and his hateful friends. 

The girls change the subject shortly, all discussing the Stonehenge trip, what they planned on packing and wearing. Lily looks around. “Is there a loo in here?” She turns toward Marlene, but Marlene is gone, and Lily can’t see her anywhere. Excusing herself, she gets up to find a loo. 

When she returns, she doesn’t see Marlene or James anywhere, so she wanders over to the bar where she orders a butterbeer. 

“Come here often?” says a voice at her shoulder, and she jumps. It’s Sirius. He laughs loudly. “Jumpy there?”

“Yeah, just a bit,” Lily stammers. “Have you seen Mar or James around?”

He gives her a shrug. “They’re probably around here somewhere. I was coming over to ask you if you’ve seen McKinnon.”

Lily shakes her head, smiling. “I was with her for a second over there—“ she gestures toward where the girls were sitting. “—but then she disappeared. I thought she was going to find you.”

“We’ll find them.” He shrugs. “Are you having fun?” He turns his back toward the bar, leaning against it casually while holding a drink in his hand. 

“I suppose so.” She sips her butterbeer nervously. Had she ever had a conversation with Sirius Black other than to tell him off for bullying Severus? 

“Why haven’t you ever come to one of these before?” he asks. “I never see you outside of classes just hanging out. You’re always doing homework or reading.”

“I didn’t _know_ about these parties,” she points out. “No one bothered to tell me about them.”

He looks down, and Lily thinks for a moment that he might be embarrassed, but when he looks up there’s only amusement on his face. “We’ll you’re not exactly a party girl.”

She rolls her eyes. “How would you know? You’ve never even invited me to a party.”

“I couldn’t, could I?” He says this like it’s totally obvious, but she cocks her head to the side, peering at him. 

“Why not?”

“Because James would have murdered me, and I don’t fancy being murdered by my best mate.” 

“Why would he have…” But she trails off because there, in the corner of the room, is James, and standing opposite him is Hestia. 

“Oh, bloody hell.” Sirius follows Lily’s gaze to where she watches them. They’re having what once again seems like a deeply intense conversation. Hestia’s brow is furrowed, her mouth a thin line. James’s back is toward them, but Lily notices the tense set of his shoulders and the way he’s standing with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. 

“Er, this looks private,” Lily mutters turning away. 

“Are you kidding?” Sirius raises his eyebrows at Lily. “Go over there!”

“What? No way! I’m not getting in the middle of that.”

She glances over her shoulder to see James turn away, his face lined with fury. Hestia then reaches out, pulling him back toward her. Lily feels a chill run down her spine, like someone has dropped an ice cube down the back of her jumper. “He looks mad,” she says. 

“He’s always mad when it comes to her,” Sirius says. “She’s driving him bloody insane.”

“Aren’t they broken up?”

Sirius glances over at Lily. “Well, yeah, but…” He trails off. 

“But what?”

“Oh, come on, Evans. Isn’t it obvious? She’s _jealous_ of you.” He pauses. “She always has been.”

Lily blinks owlishly at him, taking another careful sip of her butterbeer. She tries not to look too pleased. If Hestia was jealous, that meant their plan was working. It meant they could maybe end this ruse before the Stonehenge trip, before things got too messy, and James and Hestia would be back together by Christmas. Would that be enough time for her and Severus? 

“What’s going on over there?” Marlene has joined them, looping an arm through Sirius’s and giving him a winning smile. He smiles back just as enthusiastically, and Lily wonders if they might start snogging right here in front of her. 

“Looks like they might be having another row,” Lily says, peering over to see Hestia put a finger directly into James’s chest. 

“I think it might be time to break it up,” Marlene says quietly, looking at Lily and Sirius. “They both look like they could hex the other at any minute.”

Lily looks at them in alarm. “There is not a chance that happens…is there?” She directs this question to Sirius, who shrugs. 

“Stranger things have happened,” he says. “Like you dating Potter.”

“Ah, quick, he’s coming over!” Marlene hisses, and the three of them turn away, facing the bar, and Lily takes a clumsy glug of her butterbeer, choking and coughing. Sirius is clapping her on the back and Marlene is ordering Lily a glass of water when James reaches them. He’s fuming. 

“What’s happened to her?” He indicates toward Lily. 

“N—nothing—“ Lily gasps, taking a shaky sip of water. “Just swallowed wrong.” She peeks up at him from the rim of her water glass. “You alright?”

“Fine.” 

“You sure, mate?” Sirius asks. 

“I said I was fine, didn’t I?” James’s tone brooks no argument, and they fall silent, listening to the music. Finally, James turns to Lily. “Do you want to leave?”

With a flush of relief, Lily nods.

“Aw, no, don’t go yet!” Marlene pleads. “It’s still early.”

Lily checks her watch. “It’s nearly three in the morning!” She looks at James. “Should we break it up, Head Boy?”

“Nah, they’ll tire themselves out.” He holds out his hand, and Lily takes it. It’s warm and she inadvertently gives his hand a little squeeze. “See you both in the morning. Bye, Padfoot.”

“Later.” Sirius has turned his full attention now on Marlene, who waves absently at Lily. 

Chuckling, Lily weaves through the crowds with James’s gentle hand at her back once more. _I could get used to this_ , she thinks as the crowd parts easily for him. People are patting his back and saying goodbye to him. When they reach the wall, Lily closes her eyes again, and when she reopens them, the door is back. 

The last thing she sees before she closes the door is Hestia’s shocked face, and Lily feels a sense of relief. _This is working_ , she thinks. 

“Sorry about all that, Evans,” Potter says. He’s dropped her hand now as they walk slowly toward a staircase that will take them to Gryffindor Tower. 

“Oh.” She pauses. “That’s alright. Is, er, everything okay?”

“She just—“ His hands clench into fists. “—she just drives me completely barmy sometimes.”

“Want to talk about it?”

He glances over at Lily. “I’m not sure you want to hear what she had to say. She can be quite unkind when it comes to you.”

Lily stops, a smile playing about her lips. “So she’s mad?” He nods, and she breaks out into a grin.

“Uh, Evans? Are you sure you’re alright? You haven’t had too much to drink?” He looks puzzled at Lily’s apparent delight at Hestia’s verbal abuse. 

“Don’t you get it?” Lily reaches out and grabs James’s arm, shaking him a bit. “It’s working! Our plan! You’ll be back together by Christmas, I bet.”

“Yeah,” he says, trying to sound excited but instead seeming quite gloomy. “Hey, I don’t think I’m ready to go to bed yet. Are you hungry?”

“A bit,” she admits. “But where will we get food at this hour?” 

He grins. “Evans, have you ever been to the kitchens?”

* * *

“Okay, Potter, explain how you know how to get into the kitchens, much less where they are!” Lily’s arms are crossed tightly across her chest as Potter leads her down a set of steps off the Entrance Hall. Lily suddenly realizes how late it is, and how wrecked she’ll feel tomorrow morning in Herbology where no doubt another flora or fauna will try to kill the students. 

“Sirius and Peter found out first,” he explains, taking her hand at the bottom of the stone steps. “Watch your step, the carpet’s loose here.” She steps carefully over the edge of the lumpy carpet, dropping his hand in the process. 

“ _Lumos_.” James’s wand lights up the space and Lily sees a long corridor in front of her, lined with paintings of food. Landscapes with fruit trees, a pie cooling on a windowsill, a group of nuns gathered over a meal, bowls of fruits and vegetables, and a wide portrait of a sun setting over a farm. Lily is positive she sees one of the cows move, though she can’t be certain because it’s dark. 

They approach a painting of a massive bowl of fruit, and Lily wonders how James learned the password. She doesn’t even know it, and she’s Head Girl. But instead of announcing a password to the portrait, James reaches out a hand and lightly tickles the bright green pear in the portrait. To her abundant surprise, the pear giggles and transforms into an equally bright green doorknob. James turns to her. “Are you ready for this?” he asks. She nods, her eyes big with curiosity. 

He turns the knob, and the portrait swings open. Lily’s jaw drops. 

After seven years in the wizarding world, Lily is still surprised by how often she’s, well, surprised. The Hogwarts kitchens are massive, with high arched ceilings and five tables aligned exactly where the house and teachers’ tables are in the Great Hall. A low fire burns in a mammoth fireplace across the room, and the rough stone walls are lined with bright copper pots, pans, and kettles. Given the late hour, the kitchen is dark and still except for the embers crackling gently in the hearth. She takes a step in between what would have been the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables, marveling at the space. She runs her hand over the spot where she usually sat with her friends, and sees an identical burn mark to the one at the table above it. 

“What do you think?” 

She glances over at James, who is watching her with interest. 

“It’s…beautiful,” she whispers, glancing up at the walls, the copper reflecting the fire, giving the vast space a distinctly cozy feeling.

“Hang on.” Crossing the room, James taps on a small door next to the fireplace. To Lily’s alarm, a house elf in a tiny little dressing gown and a sleep bonnet opens the door. James crouches down to her, says something in a low voice, and she nods, her eyes bright and eager as she shuts the door behind her. He turns back to Lily. “Want to sit?” He gestures toward two stools at a rough table near the fire. She crosses the room, her boots echoing through the cavernous space. 

“Okay, spill,” she says once she’s seated, adjusting her skirt. 

“I told you, Sirius and Peter found out first.”

“But _how?”_

James ducks his head a bit, pointing his wand at the fire so more flames lick the smoldering logs inside. Lily feels awash in the warmth he created. “We…ask a lot of questions.”

“But none of the _teachers_ would have told you about this place.”

“No.” He pauses. “We talk to the portraits. Peter’s good at getting the ghosts to spill. Peeves told him about how to get in here.”

“You trust Peeves?” Lily scoffs, thinking of the demented poltergeist who made more mischief than James and his mates could dream of making. 

“Nah, but he was in a good mood this time. They brought Moony and me down here in fourth year. Bloody prats, keeping this from us for a full year.”

They’re interrupted by the little house elf who brings out a platter of sandwiches and chips, a pitcher of pumpkin juice, and a slice of chocolate cake. 

“Thank you,” Lily says quietly, looking into the house elf’s eyes. “Sorry to wake you.” The house elf bows deeply and scurries away.

“They love this stuff,” James explains. “They’re always pushing stuff on us when we come down here to take back.”

“Ah, that explains the rats in Gryffindor Tower!”

He looks alarmed for a second. “What?”

“There are rats in the dormitories, haven’t you noticed? We saw one a few weeks ago in our dorm. Marlene nearly lost her voice with the shrieking. Turns out they’re probably there for your pilfered sandwiches.” 

“Oh, yeah,” he says, avoiding her gaze. “Yeah, I’ve seen a rat in there, too.”

Lily takes a bite of her sandwich, chewing thoughtfully and looking into the fire, transfixed by the flames. 

“So. Tell me about the journals.”

She tears her eyes away from the fire to look at James, who is holding a chip in one hand and sandwich in the other, looking at her with genuine curiosity.

“What do you want to know?” She’s not sure why she says this. She certainly doesn’t want to explain her journals, how they keep her sane, how she sometimes feels like her feelings are too powerful and threaten to overwhelm her entirely. 

“Why write them in a secret diary?” He swallows. “Why not just tell me?”

She fights back a blush. “Because you were with Hestia, of course. And it’s not a bloody diary.”

“That’s not why,” he says quietly. “You knew that if I had known—“

“Don’t finish that sentence, Potter. You don’t want to say what I think you’re about to say.”

He nods. “But then—why?”

She looks away from him. “Because…that would make it real. When I write it down, it’s just in a book, you know? But relationships don’t seem worth the trouble. I mean, look at—“ 

“Me,” he says. “You can say it.”

“Sorry!” she exclaims. “But it seems to be so much work and so difficult. You and Hestia just publicly quarreled at a party and _you’re not even together._ It’s just easier to put it in a book and put it away. I’m not ready for what it means to have someone put that kind of trust in me, I guess. I suppose that’s why everyone thinks I’m a--how did you put it?-- _frigid virgin._ ” Why is she being this honest with him? She must be tired. She takes another bite of her sandwich, less out of hunger and more to shut herself up. She never talks to anyone like this. 

“Oh, Evans, I hope you’re not still thinking about that virgin comment!”

“Well--” She blushes deeply. “--I mean, I _am_. But you didn’t have to call me _frigid_ , Potter.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, his eyes filled with sincerity. She looks down into her lap. “But wait, Evans” James says. “If all that’s true--the bit about trusting and relationships being too much bloody work--how does that explain this?” He gestures in between them. 

She swallows her bite forcefully. “But this isn’t real, Potter.” She shakes her head, her curls falling forward, gleaming red in the firelight. “We’re just pretending.”

He looks away quickly, and Lily’s heart drops. Had she said something wrong? “Right,” he says. “Right, of course. Just pretending.” He sets his sandwich down, checking his watch. “It’s almost four, Evans. Let’s get you back to our rat-infested dormitory.”

“Wait, Potter. Are you cross with me?”

He looks down at her. “You just always know how to wound me, Evans. I’ve been telling you.” He cranes his head toward the door. “You ready to go?”

“But I wasn’t trying to—“

“It’s okay, Evans. You know I’m never down for long.”

They make their way back to Gryffindor Tower in silence, and when they part in the common room, Lily climbs the steps to the girls’ dormitory wondering how many times she’s hurt James Potter without even realizing it. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. Chapter Three

**Author's Notes:** Another chapter, another screed of gratitude to my beta reader, **fanficreader938 _,_** for being a brilliant editor & collaborator. 

Thank you also to the wonderful readers & reviewers. **TheZombine, pearl_flowwer, Dancingonstars,** and **sophie** for the lovely reviews. To all those who left kudos--thank you!! I love reading theories knowing that they will be addressed later on. I hope y'all stay on board because I've already written a big portion of Chapter Four, and have up to Chapter Ten planned in a huge spreadsheet that gets more more complex by the day. 

As always, please read & leave a review if you feel so inclined. The reviews mean so much to me and are so motivating for me as a writer. :) 

* * *

**Chapter Three**

“I’m not sure about this, Potter. I think I’ve changed my mind.” Lily chews on her bottom lip, her eyes wide as she stares at James. She’s bloody freezing out here on the Quidditch pitch, where Potter had dragged her early this morning to get started on their flying lessons. 

“Aw, no! Evans, I promise it’s safe. I _swear_ , I won’t let you fall.” James points at the broomstick that lies in front of Lily. “Besides, it was like skinning a sphinx to get Sirius to let me borrow his broomstick for you.”

“Why can’t I use one of the school brooms?” Lily whines, trying and failing not to pout. She puts her hands on her hips, shaking her head. “What’s wrong with them?”

“Well, for starters, they’re bleeding ancient,” James says exasperatedly. “You’ll almost certainly fall off one of them.” He bites back a smile, and Lily knows they’re both remembering the flying lesson in their first year when Madam Swyler forced Lily to get on a broom, and she fell ten solid feet to the ground and had to spend the night in the Hospital Wing. 

“But won’t Sirius’s broom be too fast?” She nudged the shiny broomstick with her toe, and it vibrated angrily at her. 

“We’ll go slow,” James reassured her. “I promise, Evans.”

“I don’t trust you.” She eyed him warily. 

He put his hands on his head in frustration. “Then why are we out here at the crack of dawn, Evans?”

“I don’t know, it was _your_ idea to do it today!” She pouts even harder and hates herself for it. 

“Well, if I’d known you were going to be such a wimp about it, I would have been more than happy to stay in my warm bed, fast asleep!”

“I’m just nervous! The last time I did this, I broke both my bloody arms, and I don’t fancy doing that again!”

He bursts out laughing. “I remember,” he wheezes, doubled over with mirth. 

“It’s not funny!”

He sobers immediately. “No, you’re right,” he says, very obviously holding back a laugh. “It was probably very traumatizing for you, Evans. I don’t mean to laugh at your pain.”

“Oh, shut the bloody hell up, Potter.” She stretches out her arm with her hand over the broom. “Up!” 

The broomstick zips up into her hand. It’s warm to the touch, almost buzzing with a kind of wild intensity. James watches her for a moment as she swings a leg over the broom, testing it out. She glares at him. “Well? Are you going to show me how to fly or not?”

He does the same, mounting his own brand new broomstick. Lily had heard that his parents got the Comet 180 for him because he’d been named Head Boy this year. He looks over at her. “Okay, I think the mistake most people make their first time is kicking off too hard. If you kick off too hard on that broom, you’ll go practically vertical. So just lightly bend your knees—yeah, just like that. And just kind of…hop. Lightly!” 

Lily grips the handle tightly, moistening her lips, and looks down at her legs. With a sense of foreboding, she hops slightly and almost immediately, the broom starts to rise. 

“James!” she screams, and she hears a rush of air next to her. She’s hovering about four feet above the ground, low enough where she wouldn’t hurt herself if she fell. 

“I’m here!” he says. He wears a huge smile on his face, and Lily knows this is giving him so much pleasure that she considers calling this whole thing off. “Okay, you’re doing great! Look, you’re flying!”

“Great! We did it, so can you show me how to get down now?” She looks at him pleadingly, and he throws his head back to laugh. Lily tries to ignore how cute he looks when he laughs at something she’s said. 

“We’ll go slow, alright?” He hovers closer to her, so close that she can feel the warmth of his arm through the thick wool of her cloak. “So we’ll just go forward a bit.”

“Not too fast!” 

He shakes his head. “Just lean forward, just a bit,” he instructs. “Not too much, just like this.” He leans forward on his broom slowly, and it zooms forward a few feet. He wheels himself around, waving his hand toward her. “And then lean back just a bit when you’re ready to stop. Come on. Just go easy.”

“No thanks, I’m fine just like this.”

He shakes his head. “You’re doing great! You won’t fall; I won’t let you. Come on, you can do it.”

She readjusts her hands on the broomstick, and just like he instructed, leans forward slightly. To her surprise, the broom moves smoothly forward until she’s right next to him. Following his instructions is easy, and Lily wonders if he’s considered teaching as a career. She certainly would have learned to fly much sooner if James Potter had been her instructor. Despite his earlier protestations, once she got on the broom, he suddenly became incredibly patient and encouraging. 

“I did it!” she cries, looking at him. She knows she has the biggest, silliest grin on her face, but she can’t help it. She’s flying! 

“Want to go up?” he asks. 

Her eyes widen. “Higher?” Lily squeaks.

“Just a bit,” he says reassuringly. “Okay, so this is easy. Grab the handle a little higher—yeah, just there.” He takes her gloved hands and guides them a little further away from her, and she watches him as he does this. “Watch me before you do this part, okay?” She nods. “So you only need a little pull on the broom handle, and then lean forward. Pull it towards you, like this.” 

He floats upward gently at a small incline, and Lily wonders if she’ll ever be able to be half as graceful as he is on a broomstick. He looks down at her, smiling, and she can tell that flying is easily his favorite thing in the world. She never realized this about him, always thinking of him as a show-offy flier, someone who had raw talent and rubbed that gift in others’ faces. But really, he loves this, and Lily suddenly feels a bit overwhelmed as she joins him a few feet higher, halting right across from him with a small lurch. 

“Don’t lean back so quickly next time,” he says, his breath puffing into a cloud in front of his face. “You’ll learn the broomstick in no time. You almost have to lean back a little bit before you want to stop.” He smiles at her, a real earnest smile that showcases a pair of dimples that Lily had never noticed before. His cheeks are pink with excitement, and the casual ease with which he flies makes it seem like he could do anything. Still, Lily feels a swoop in her stomach that has nothing to do with being ten feet above the ground. 

“How’d you get so good at this?” she asks, trying to distract herself from how high off the ground she currently is. She reaches up carefully with one hand and adjusts her Gryffindor stocking cap. 

“My parents taught me when I was a kid,” he says. He’s never really mentioned his parents to her before, and Lily hopes he keeps going, always eager to hear how Pureblood wizards grew up. “They both played Quidditch when they were at Hogwarts, and we have a small practice area where I learned.”

“How old were you?” asked Lily.

“Oh, maybe…five?” He reaches up to fix his own stocking cap, an identical one to the one that atop Lily’s head. 

“Five seems so young!”

“It took them all their time to keep me _off_ a broom,” he says, chuckling. “Then they got me a little one, you know, for little kids.”

“No, I don’t know,” she reminds him. “I was raised by Muggles.”

“Oh, right.” He flushes. “Sorry, I forget sometimes. Well, anyway, they make little ones for kids, and they taught me then. I was zooming around the countryside by the time I was seven.”

“How is that safe?”

“I’m just that good, Evans!” He laughs again, and Lily tries her hardest not to show how much pleasure she gets from that sound. 

“What positions did they play? Your parents?”

“Mum was a Chaser, like me,” he tells her, pride inflecting his voice. “And Dad was a Seeker.” He pauses, like he’s said too much. “Want to go higher?”

She nods quietly, and he leads her upward steadily until they reach the hoops that they use to play Quidditch. They hover quietly over the pitch, watching the sun shoot rays of pink and orange over the castle. Lily thinks she’s never seen anything more breathtaking. She’s seen the sunrise over the mountains and the lake plenty of times from Gryffindor Tower, but watching the sparkling golden rays wash over the castle as she sits astride a broom next to James bloody Potter feels like something that should happen in someone else’s life. Not hers. She thinks back to before her journals were out, how much she was hiding from herself and others, and how she finally let someone see her, and to her great astonishment, the person she let see her was not Mary or Marlene or Severus or even Petunia. She let James Potter know her, and for the first time in her life, she feels like someone sees her for exactly who she is. 

She glanced at James on the broomstick next to her. He is enthralled in the sunrise, the golden rays reflecting off his glasses, blocking his eyes from view. His mouth is slightly open, and somehow, Lily can feel what he’s feeling. Awe for the beauty they’re witnessing and perhaps a bit of melancholy because their days in this place are numbered.

They stay up there for a while, James coaching Lily slowly as she becomes more and more confident on the broom. Before too long, she’s doing a lap around the pitch and James is whooping. 

“That was…” She breathes heavily. “…completely exhilarating!”

He laughs. “See? I told you so. You’re gonna be a Quidditch pro before too long, Evans. I should probably watch my back—you’re going to try to steal the Captain spot from me, aren’t you?”

She can’t help it—she laughs, too. “It’s brilliant being out here this early. The sun! I’ve never seen it over the castle.”

A smile dangles on the corner of James’s lips. “No one’s ever come out here with me before.”

“Are you here often?” She wonders now how many times she’d sat in her windowsill in Gryffindor Tower and missed seeing him on the Quidditch pitch. 

He shrugs. “Sometimes. More often when it’s warmer.” A pause. “Before Quidditch matches, too.”

She shakes her head in amusement, then checks her watch. “Oh, Merlin. We should get back. I’ve got Runes in an hour.”

His eyes widen. If that were true, they had been out here for nearly two full hours. He swears under his breath. “Okay, Evans. You’ve done great so far, but this is honestly maybe the hardest part.”

“Wh—what?” A spark of nervousness flashes in her brain. 

“We’ll take it nice and easy,” he says. “Just grasp the broom handle like this—“ he shows her with his own hands “—and then tilt it downward just a bit.”

She does it, and feels the broom tilt downward as she leans forward. Very slowly, she moves down at a slight angle. He nods encouragingly next to her. “That’s great. Look at you! You’re a natural! Now when you land, you have to pull out of the land just a bit to get your feet down. Not much! Just a bit of a pull on the front of the broom. Do you understand?”

She nods, focusing intently on maintaining the lazy speed with which she was angling downward. She feels rather than sees Potter next to her, and when she glanced over to him, something shifts in her. He was looking back at her with focus and concern, and she suddenly imagined what it would be like to actually be James Potter’s girlfriend. Would he take her flying with him whenever she asked? Would she get to fly with him and his parents? The thought makes her insides feel weird, and she turns back to her broom, shifting her weight slightly. 

Which she shouldn’t have done. The broomstick picks up speed, and in mere seconds, she is hurtling downward at breakneck pace. She feels the air leave her lungs, and she’s pretty sure she lets out a scream. The ground is approaching rapidly. What did Potter say to do? 

She yanks up on the broom handle, but it’s too much too fast. Her feet land hard on the frosty grass, and a searing pain shoots up her left leg. She rolls off the broomstick, gasping as she sees Potter land easily near her, leaping off and coming toward her at a sprint. He skids on his knees next to her, his cloak flapping open to reveal a knitted green jumper that looks handmade. 

“Oh, fuck!” he says, looking at her. “Evans? You alright? Say something!” He’s leaning over her now, his glasses glinting over her eyes. She’s reminded vividly of when she fainted upon discovering that he got her journal.

“My ankle!” she gasps. “I can’t move it!”

“ _Ohfuckohfuckohfuck_.” He looks at her ankle, and then back to her face. “I think your ankle is broken.”

She lets out a groan that under normal circumstances she’d be mortified by, but she can’t be bothered to care right now. She feels tears spring to her eyes, and good God, is she really going to cry?

“Lily, I’m going to pick you up, okay?” He leans in closer. “I’d bind your ankle, but I think I might make it worse. I’m going to take you to Pomfrey, okay?” 

She grits her teeth and nods, blinking back tears, as he slides an arm under her back and another under her knees, scooping her up with ease. Before she knows what’s happening, she’s looped her arms around his neck. “It’ll be alright,” he says soothingly. “Pomfrey will get you fixed up in no time.” 

He smells like bloody oranges again, but it’s hard to focus because Lily’s head is swimming with the excruciating pain. She feels her eyes sliding to the back of her head, and she forces herself to stay alert. _You can’t faint again!_ She screams at herself. 

“What—on—earth!” Pomfrey’s voice breaks through Lily’s chaotic thoughts. “Set her down and tell me exactly what happened!”

Lily feels James place her gently on a bed in the Hospital Wing. She feels Madam Pomfrey’s hands immediately on her forehead and cheeks, and she keeps her eyes closed. 

“We were flying!” His voice sounds panicked, and in the back of her mind, she can almost see him rip off his cap and gloves, pulling at his messy black hair anxiously. “She landed too hard. I think her ankle—it’s—“

“Broken,” Pomfrey says grimly. “Completely broken.”

“She’ll walk again, right?!” says James, sounding close to hysterics. 

“Oh, she’ll walk again, Mr. Potter.” She touches Lily’s broken ankle lightly, and Lily moans. “This is going to hurt, Miss Evans.”

Lily opens her eyes for a moment to see Pomfrey in her pink dressing gown at Lily’s feet. She slides her eyes to James, who is seemingly trying to strangle his stocking cap in his hands. His hair is standing on end, distress lining his face. For a moment, Lily has the most bizarre urge to laugh at him, but then Pomfrey does something with her wand, and Lily feels another searing pain shoot through her leg followed by an extremely odd sensation that felt like the bones in her ankle were knitting themselves together. 

“Drink this, Miss Evans,” Pomfrey says, pushing a little cup into Lily’s hands. Lily sits up in the bed, recognizing the purple Pain Potion, and glugs it down. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, and looks at James, who is now sitting at the edge of the bed next to her, worrying his Gryffindor cap incessantly. 

“You know, there won’t be much of that left if you keep fidgeting with it,” Lily says, indicating to his crap, and his forehead finally relaxes, a slight grin gracing his face. His hands drop to his lap, the cap tumbling to the ground, unnoticed.

“You sure you’re alright, Evans?” 

“Yes,” she says, wincing slightly as she sits up. “Can I go, Madam Pomfrey? We’ve got class in less than an hour.”

Pomfrey sniffs. “Yes, of course, dear. But don’t let me hear about you being on a broomstick again!”

Lily shudders now, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and experimentally testing her ankle. “I won’t ever be getting on a broomstick again, I can promise you that.”

The moment they depart the Hospital Wing, Potter starts jabbering. 

“Evans, I am _so_ sorry. I thought you’d be okay. You were doing _so well_! And then—well, we’ll just have to get you comfortable on the broom again, and I’ll land before you so you can watch me—“

“Potter, did you hear me back there? I’m _never_ getting on a broomstick again. Lily Evans is staying on the ground.” She feels a small flame of embarrassment alight in her mind. What would he say if he knew the reason she had ended up with a broken ankle during their first flying lesson is because she couldn’t stop thinking about his bloody surprise dimples?

He looks crestfallen. “Aw, no, Evans! You were seriously so good up there. I mean, I could tell you were nervous, but you kicked arse until the end there.”

“Yeah, and then the ground kicked my arse!” She winces slightly, and his brow furrows. 

“Does it still hurt?”

She thinks about this for a moment as they begin their climb. “Not really. Just feels weird.” Then she looks at him sternly. “Don’t tell anyone about this.” 

He shakes his head while lifting his right hand in a mock salute. “On my honor, I won’t.”

“What honor?” she jokes. 

“See what I mean?” He clutches the front of his cloak. “You always know how to wound me.” 

“I’m not _trying_ to,” she insists. “But you _always_ used to give me a hard time, and I took it so personally. And now I guess you deserve a taste of your own medicine.”

He shrugs, then winks at her lightly. “Fine, but don’t transfigure my scarf into a giant worm, okay?”

Lily remembers darkly back to fourth year when Potter and his mates had somehow turned her school scarf into a gigantic, slimy worm around her neck. She’s pretty sure the entire castle had heard her screams. “No promises, Potter.”

They give the Fat Lady the password, and are surprised to see students gathered in the common room. Even though Lily _knows_ that it’s nearly time for class, she still can’t believe that she got up before the sun rose and had already broken her ankle before the day had even started.

Sirius and Marlene are exchanging pieces of parchment in front of the hearth. Marlene’s eyebrows shoot up when she sees Lily and James walk in, and Sirius grins mischievously. Other students glance up with mild interest, and Lily spots Hestia at a table in the far corner, her bright eyes fixed on them like those of a circling hawk. 

“Okay, I’d better shower,” Lily says, gesturing toward the girls’ dormitories. “See you in Transfiguration this afternoon?” 

“Sure,” he replies. She begins to walk away when she feels his hand on her shoulder.

“Hey, Lily—“ The way he says her name suddenly sounds odd and stilted. “You know that Saturday’s Quidditch, right?”

She nods, lowering her voice before she speaks. “I remember, don’t worry. I have your jersey and the bloody banner.”

He nods, and there’s something odd in his eyes that she can’t quite place. Without warning, he puts a gentle hand on her wrist, leans in, and gives her a soft kiss on her cheek. “I’ll see you later,” he says quietly, and as Lily turns away, she can’t help but smile.

* * *

“Where were _you_ this morning?” Mary says in a low voice at lunch, her eyes glinting. 

Lily glances at her as she cuts her sandwich. “Mary, you know I’m always starving after Arithmancy. I can’t talk about this!”

“Tell us!” Marlene exclaims loudly. “Or I _will_ spread a rumor.”

Lily snorts. “What kind of rumor?”

Marlene squints, staring into space, then shakes her head. “Okay, I can’t think of anything that anyone would believe. You’re too pure for this world, Lily.”

Lily and Mary laugh, and Lily feels a twinge in her stomach. How long can she keep lying to them about James? “I was…flying,” she finally decides to say. What would be the point of lying? “And I broke my ankle.”

They gape at her. “You _what?”_ Mary exclaims. “You hate flying!”

“It was actually kind of fun,” she says with a small shrug. “James took me to the Quidditch pitch, and I got pretty high up.”

“Oh my gosh, Lily, that’s incredible,” Marlene gushes, her eyes twinkling. “I can’t believe you have a boyfriend who successfully got you to go flying.”

“Hey!” Mary says defensively. “I’ve had boyfriends! I just…don’t currently have a boyfriend.”

“Did Tommy ever take you flying?” Lily asks curiously, remembering that Mary’s ex-boyfriend was also a Quidditch player. 

“He _tried_ ,” Mary says darkly, her eyes flashing. “But I wasn’t having it.”

“But wait, Lil, how did you break your ankle?” Marlene exclaims, waving impatiently at Mary. “Did you fall again?”

Lily rolls her eyes. “No! I just…”

“Landed too hard!” James had shown up, finishing her story for her. He gestures toward the empty seat next to Lily “Mind if I sit?”

“Not at all,” Lily says, and he takes the seat next to her. 

“You nervous about the match on Saturday, Potter?” Marlene asks. 

“Against Slytherin? After Ravenclaw, it’ll be a piece of cake!” James is snarfing down a sandwich now as he talks.

“Sirius thinks it might be harder than we think.”

“Oh, he thinks that, does he?” James winks at Marlene. “You and Sirius talk about Quidditch on Halloween night, McKinnon?”

Marlene blushes a brilliant shade of red, and Lily and Mary grin at each other. When Lily had returned from her nighttime introduction to the Hogwarts kitchens at four in the morning on Halloween, Marlene still wasn’t in her bed. She had gotten in much later, well after the sun rose, and Lily and Mary hadn’t stopped teasing her since. Even Alice had gotten some friendly ribbing in, and Marlene, normally a very straightforward person, was blushing significantly more than usual lately. 

“Where _is_ Sirius?” Lily asks, turning to James. 

“Oh, up in the library trying to start his Transfiguration essay.”

“I’m surprised any of you know where the library is, Potter,” Mary says, and James laughs.

“Hey, we get pretty good marks!”

“Yeah, Sirius got above an A on all his O.W.L.s,” Marlene says. “And I know you did better than him, Potter.” 

James nods silently, and Lily knows he’s remembering their O.W.L.s and what came after that. There is a brief, embarrassing pause, and then she turns to him. 

“Do you want to go down and check on our Veritaserum this evening?” 

“Ahhhh, I completely forgot that we need to test it tonight!” He groans. “I reserved the Quidditch pitch for an extra practice before the match.”

“I can go before Astronomy,” Lily offers. “It’s no big deal.”

He smiles gratefully at her. “Thanks. I owe you one.”

“It’s nothing,” Lily says, turning back to her sandwich. Across the table, she sees Mary and Marlene grinning widely at her, their eyes glinting with joy. “What are you two so happy about?”

Mary gestures between Lily and James. “This.”

“It’s _very_ cute,” Marlene adds.

“Oh, shut u—“ Lily starts to snap irritably, but she feels James slip his arm around her shoulders. 

“Thank you, ladies!” he says gratefully. He smiles at Lily now, smoothing her hair back from her temple and planting a kiss to the side of her face. From the corner of her eye, Lily spots Hestia turn away; she’d been watching them again.

“Awwww!” Mary and Marlene chorus. Lily throws a napkin at them. 

* * *

_It’s freezing down here_ , Lily thinks as she descends into the dungeons. Her boots echo down the corridor where the Potions classroom is located. She rubs her hands together, wishing she had thought to bring her gloves with her. She hadn’t anticipated the chill in the air, and her breath puffs up in clouds. 

Slowly, she enters the Potions classroom, setting her bag down on a table, and weaving her way through the tables to the back of the room where James’s cauldron is sitting alongside a number of others with a small flame lit under it. She takes out her wand, and points it at the cauldron. _Wingardium Leviosa,_ she thinks, and it rises smoothly from the table. Guiding it back to her own table, Lily sets it down gently. She pockets her wand, winds her hair up into a knot atop her head, and peers into the cauldron. The liquid within is a pearly white with a sheen so iridescent that Lily thinks it looks like a jewel. She flips open _Advanced Potion Making_ to the marked page, examining the complex words and instructions. The potion, as she had suspected, is perfect. It’s on track to be ready by the end of the month, just in time for when she and James are scheduled to present it to the class and to Professor Slughorn. 

She sighs, watching it shimmer pleasantly. She feels immensely at ease down here, alone with the potions. She pulls up a tall stool from the other side of the table, hops onto it, and cups her chin in her hand, her feet kicking back and forth underneath the table. Watching the steam rise lazily from the surface of the shimmering potion, her mind wanders back to this morning’s flying lesson with James. 

Lily was _not_ a good flier, that was for certain, but for about two hours this morning, she was an _adequate_ flier. Somehow, James Potter went from someone who tormented and teased Lily endlessly to someone who held her hand in the corridors and taught her how to fly. A soft smile plays about her lips as she remembers how he looked as the first light broke through the darkness, turning his face golden. How his hand had felt moving her hair aside, how his mouth had felt against her temple, how Mary and Marlene had nearly squealed with excitement at the sight of Lily not only having a boyfriend, but willingly letting him kiss her. 

At the thought of Mary and Marlene, Lily’s stomach lurches. Her legs stop swinging, coming to rest on the rungs of the stool upon which she was perched. Unwillingly, she lets her thoughts drift to her two best friends. Since the Halloween party just a few days ago, Lily has been ruminating on simply telling her friends everything: how there were three journals, not one. How they got out. How Severus kissed her in the library and everything about her and James, their arrangement so James could get Hestia back, and most of all, how she found herself thinking about James more and more. But every time she felt as though she might do it, the words got caught in her throat, jumbled in her brain, and she held back. The longer she held back, the scarier the secret became, and the scarier the secret became, the more she felt as if it were impossible to tell them. 

The full truth of it is that Lily wants to trust Mary and Marlene. They chose her when Hestia ditched her. They trust _her_ with their secrets, even when she drunkenly spills those secrets to Sirius Black. Mary even trusted Lily not to tell Marlene when she accidentally stood too close to a fire wearing a dress she borrowed from Marlene, getting a scorch mark on the hem of it. So why doesn’t Lily want to tell them about her _true_ feelings for Severus or James, for that matter? 

_You know why_ , she thinks darkly, closing her eyes as if shutting out the world will keep her attention in the present moment, but all it does is suck her in deeper into a whirlpool of torment. 

In the not too distant past, Lily had confided in the people closest to her, but it consistently blew up in her face. She had told her sister, Petunia, about her strange abilities, how she could leap off a swing and feel like she was flying or make ivy curl around her wrist, how she felt like a freak. She had confided in Severus, all her thoughts about feeling different—feeling ostracized—because she was Muggleborn, how she thought she’d be worse at magic and her surprise at her good marks. And she had confided in Hestia about Severus—how she loved him, how she was _in_ love with him, how she’d kissed him in the dungeon, how she could feel him slipping away from her. 

In turn, they had all rejected her. Petunia turned Lily’s confidences into taunts of “Freak!” Severus had turned Lily’s trust in him into“Mudblood!” And Hestia had said the cruelest thing of them all during their fight on that awful, awful day. 

“No one will want you after I tell everyone you snogged that manky old creep,” she’d hissed in Lily’s face. “Not even James. You’re worthless.” 

Hestia has never said anything to anyone about it as far as Lily knows, but her spurning by those in whom she had entrusted her deepest fears had taught Lily a principal lesson: secrets were weapons that others could wield against you. It was simply easier for Lily to confide in no one but her journals. And therefore, she would never tell Marlene and Mary about Severus, about James, and most of all, about her humiliating fake relationship.

She hears a small creak and her eyes fly open, her heart leaping into her throat. Her eyes fly to the entrance of the Potions classroom, but there’s no one there. Then, a small movement at the corner of her eye catches her attention, and she whips her head around so abruptly that the whole room tilts for a moment. 

It’s Severus. He’s levitating his cauldron toward a table, but his eyes are looking at her. “What are you doing here?” she blurts out. 

“What does it look like?” He gestures toward his little cauldron, now sitting on a table where Severus has put down his things. 

“Well—“ She wants to glare at him, but he hasn’t done anything wrong. “—fine.”

“Fine.”

Lily turns back to her Veritaserum, her heart slowing now as she tries to refocus on her potion, but there’s nothing she needs to do with her potion. It’s perfect. _It’s going to be perfect_ , she thinks with a smile. It might be the first time James gets an O on a Potions assignment. 

With a small sigh, she levitates James’s cauldron back where it was with the others, casting a small protection spell over it to protect it from the elements. As she’s crossing the room, Severus speaks. 

“Lily.” His voice cuts through the air, as painful as a sharp blade through soft flesh. 

She whirls around to face him, knowing how she looks. Her curls have frizzed up from the steam of the bubbling Veritaserum. She narrows her eyes at him. “What?” She doesn’t mean to snap, but it happens anyway. 

“You’re really dating him then.” It’s not a question. He’s not asking her if she’s dating James Potter. He’s telling her that he sees what she’s been flaunting in front of him over the past few weeks. 

“Yeah.” She raises her chin defiantly. “Yeah, I am.”

“You don’t really seem like his type,” Severus says, and at this, Lily feels her temper flare. 

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

His dark eyes are fixed on his cauldron, his hand stirring the potion inside, but he’s still speaking to Lily. “You’re not like the other idiots he’s dated. You’re smart. You’re not a party girl like Jones or a slag like the other girls he messed about with before her.”

“I—“ She doesn’t know what to say to this. It sounds like he’s complimenting her, but there’s something ugly underneath it that she can’t quite place. 

“And you don’t even look like the other girls he’s dated.” Now his eyes are on her face. She feels another prickle of anger begin to stir inside her. 

“You mean I’m not beautiful like them.” Lily’s voice rings through the dungeon, and Severus stops stirring his potion now, his brow furrowed. 

“Lily, you know I think you’re—“ he swallows. “—very beautiful. You _know_ I think that. I’ve _always_ thought that.”

“Then why do you seem so surprised that he may feel the same way?” Lily replies scathingly. In her chest, her heart is galloping. 

“I thought you hated him anyway,” Severus says. Lily snorts. _Slick change of subject._

“That was two years ago, Sev. He’s not that same person. None of us are the same people.”

“’ _He’s an arrogant, bullying toerag’,”_ Severus imitates, and Lily flushes at his impression of her. _“’I’d rather date the giant squid than date him_.’”

“Shut up.” The intensity in her voice surprises even her. “Just…shut up.” She starts to walk away from him when she hears his sneer again. 

“It’ll never work.”

She turns, glancing over her shoulder. “Your potion, you mean?” she says nastily. 

He smiles now, and it’s unkind. It’s not unlike the look he got on his face the day he first called her a Mudblood. “You and Potter. It’s not having the, ah, intended effect. It’ll never make me jealous.”

Lily’s blood runs cold. She feels a chill run down her spine that has nothing to do with the biting cold in the dungeon. “You know, funnily enough, I didn’t think about you when I started dating James.” _Liar,_ she thinks to herself. “As a matter of fact, I don’t really _ever_ think about you, Sev.” _Double liar._

“Lily,” Severus says softly, his mouth contorted in an ugly way. “You know I can read you better than anyone else.” 

She stares at him for a moment, then says, “Maybe. But you’ve forgotten who can read _you_ best. I know everything you’ve been up to, Sev.”

He stiffens, the blood draining from his face. “You don’t even know what you’re saying.”

She taps the side of her nose like she did when she was a kid with a secret. “You should be more careful, Severus,” she replies quietly. “You never know who’s watching y—“

Severus’s eyes widen now as Lily hears footsteps behind her. She whirls around in time to see James cross the threshold into the classroom. 

“Hey, there you a—“ He pauses, frowning at the sight of Lily with her cheeks flushed and Snape’s pale face. “Weird vibe,” he finally decides to say. A wave of relief washes over Lily at the sight of him, the tension in the room breaking with his mere presence. 

“Hi,” she says, crossing the room to meet him. “How was practice?”

“Good.” He gives her a questioning look, and she shakes her head ever so slightly. “I was thinking we could have dinner together, if you haven’t eaten already.”

“That sounds great,” she says gratefully, picking up her things. “I’m starving.”

“See ya, Snape!” James calls over his shoulder as he grabs Lily’s hand, his warm fingers closing reassuringly around hers. She hurries him out of the dungeon and into the corridor, where she drops his hand and speeds up, heading upstairs, away from the dungeon and away from Severus fucking Snape. “Hey, Evans! Wait!” 

“What?!”

“Whoa, what did I do?!”

She closes her eyes. “Sorry. I just—nothing. _You_ didn’t do anything. Sorry.“

“What was all _that?”_ he says, jerking his thumb behind him. “Why am I always walking in on you and Snape having some kind of… _thing_?”

“It wasn’t a thing. There wasn’t a thing. He just—“ She shakes her head, blinking back tears. “—just makes me so mad!” She resists the urge to stamp her foot against the stone like a child having a temper tantrum. 

James looks at her patiently. “What did he do?”

“He—he said—“ She glares at James, and she knows that this is unfair—he hasn’t done anything wrong. “He thinks that I’m dating you to make _him_ jealous.”

James lets out a low whistle. “And he told you that, did he? Is he a bit, er, suicidal?”

She nods miserably, fidgeting with a stray thread on her cloak. “And he basically said—“ and now her face reddens. “—said that I’m not pretty enough to be your girlfriend.” She pauses. “Also that I’m too boring.”

James laughs now. “Evans, you are the least boring, most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”

“But I don’t go to parties, and I suppose I am a bit short, not like Hestia, the bloody giantess—“

“Whoa whoa whoa, stop!” James takes Lily’s shoulders in his hands, shaking her gently. “You’re completely spiraling right now. Evans, you went to a party with me just this week, a party that Snape wasn’t even at. How would he even know what you’re up to when he’s not even around?” 

Lily blinks up at him gratefully. “I mean, I get it. Like, I don’t look like Hestia or whatever her name was in fifth year.”

“Diana.”

“Right, her.” Lily sniffs lightly. “I suppose I’m not quite your type but—“

He’s looking at her quite oddly, and she feels like he’s peering directly into her soul. “I don’t have a type.”

Lily laughs. “Everyone has a type!”

“Come on up to dinner, Evans,” James says, coaxing her up the steps. “I’ll tell you my type over shepherd’s pie.”

“Nice. Good conversation to have with your girlfriend. I hope someone overhears and thinks I’m your beard.”

“Evans, it would be an honor if you’d agree to be my beard,” James announces loudly, almost as if he hoped someone overheard them. 

“What would you need Sirius for then?”

He throws his head back and laughs, and Lily warmly remembers how he laughed this morning on his broom. Her stomach lurches at how much she likes making him laugh. If she still had her journal, she would write about this exact feeling tonight in her bed, her quill scratching lightly with Mary sleeping soundly next to her. 

Instead, she lies curled under her covers, trying not to fall asleep because the moment she closes her eyes, all she can see are James’ dimples when he laughs. 

* * *

On Saturday morning, Lily wakes early. She stays under her covers for a moment, thinking about the Quidditch match today. James had scheduled another late practice last night so Lily had dinner with Mary and Marlene, and then Mary helped Marlene and Lily with their Transfiguration essays. 

Lily is an infamously late sleeper so she rarely gets time in the dormitory like this. With a slight wave of her wand, she parts the thick hangings around her four-poster and slips out from the covers. She points her wand at the little wood-burning stove in the corner of the dormitory and it starts crackling immediately. Throwing her dressing gown over her shoulders, she creeps to the window, stepping over her school bag and various items of clothing that are scattered around. Using her arms to leverage herself, she hops lightly up onto the deep stone windowsill, feeling the chill from the window more acutely up here. The sun is just starting to brighten the sky, and as she looks out onto the grounds, a dull ache clamps over her heart. 

This is her last year here.

As she gazes over the grounds, a solitary figure whizzes over the Quidditch pitch, and if Lily squints, she’s certain they’re clad in scarlet and gold. James had confided in her that he goes out to the pitch before matches. She’s confident it’s him, and she sends him a warm thought of what she hopes is good luck. Could he feel that she was thinking about him, wishing him luck today?

She’s not sure how long she sits there, watching the sun graze the grounds with dazzling light, but the dormitory starts to stir. Alice gets up to go to the loo. Marlene’s bed hangings part, revealing mussed hair and bleary eyes. “Why are you up?” Marlene says hoarsely when she spies Lily. 

“Couldn’t sleep,” Lily replies, hopping off the window ledge and sliding directly into Marlene’s bed. She slips down into the covers, still warm from Marlene’s body, and peers into her friend’s sleep-worn face. “Will you help me do my makeup today? For the match?”

“Hmmm,” Marlene hums, but there’s a smile playing across her lips.

“I just—“

“I get it,” Marlene says. “Yes, Lily Evans, I will help you.”

Lily smiles gratefully at her friend, watching as Marlene stretches her arms over her head. “Mar?” she says in a low voice. 

“Hmm?”

“Do you think I’m…boring?”

Marlene looks at Lily suspiciously. “Did Potter tell you that? That you’re boring?”

“No, not him…” She pauses. “Just answer the question, please?”

Marlene rolls over to face Lily, cradling her head in the crook of her arm. “No, Lily. I don’t think you’re boring.” She pauses. “You’re careful.” 

“Careful sounds boring.”

“You need to be careful,” Marlene says quietly, looping a piece of long dark hair around her finger. “Our world isn’t…the best to you and Mary. Look at what’s happening out there. Why wouldn’t you be careful, Lily?”

Lily’s throat tightens at Marlene’s words. “But I want to be fun so you feel like you can have fun, too.”

“Lily, you literally told Sirius I had a crush on him, and that’s the only reason he asked me out. He told me he was scared to talk to me before because I’m always with you two. He could never get me alone.”

“Well, he’s always with those prats, too!”

“Okay, you’re missing the point here!” Marlene huffs. “If it weren’t for you, I’d still be pining away for him. You’re the perfect amount of fun.”

A swell of affection for Marlene rushes Lily, and she wants to throw her arms around her friend. Instead, she gives Marlene a smile that she hopes conveys her gratitude to Marlene—for accepting her, for picking her, for loving her the way she used to be loved by Petunia, for being easy to forgive her for her missteps. 

“Hey, what the fuck!” Mary’s voice crossed the room as she bounds into Marlene’s bed. “You had a sleepover and didn’t tell me?”

“We live together, dolt,” Marlene mutters. “Every night is a sleepover!”

Mary hops in between Lily and Marlene, and Lily moves over to make room for her. She feels overwhelming contentment come over her, and she wonders if Mary and Marlene would think about living together, just the three of them, after graduation. This feels supremely comfortable, and she’s not sure that she can return home to Cokeworth, to that empty house where not even her sister lives anymore. 

Mary’s stomach gives a huge rumble, making both Lily and Marlene jump and then break into peals of laughter. “I’m hungry!” Mary says, her cheeks reddening. “Can we please go down to breakfast? The match isn’t for another three hours so we can get ready after.”

Lily and Marlene agree, throwing on jeans and jumpers, tromping down the many flights of stairs and slipping into the Great Hall, which is already buzzing with activity. James is holding court with Gryffindor Quidditch team, his brows knitted together as he listens to Layla tell him something in a hushed tone. His hair looks windswept, like he’s already been on a broom today, and Lily knows without a doubt that it was him out on the pitch this morning. The rest of the team gathers around tightly, some still in their sleep things. 

Sirius spots the three girls take a seat at their usual spot. He jogs over lightly, and Lily kind of understands what Marlene sees in him. His hair falls over his eye easily, a look that Lily knows James envies. He has bright blue eyes and wears an air of someone who couldn’t care less about others, except that he actually cares deeply for those around him. There’s something wonderfully open about him, Lily realizes as she watches him lean down and kiss Marlene. Marlene leans her face up easily to meet his lips, and he lightly caresses her cheek as he drops into the seat next to Marlene. “James is tweaking right now,” he says in an undertone, taking a small sip of Marlene’s coffee. 

Lily glances at James, who is still in deep conversation with Layla, a furrowed brow unmoving on his face. “Why?” she asks. “He said it would be easier than the Ravenclaw match.”

“Avery’s out,” Sirius replies. “Sick, I suppose.”

“So—that’s good, right? He’s a good Chaser,” Marlene says. Lily can’t help but notice how radiant and lovely Marlene looks next to Sirius, and she has to bite back a smile to keep from teasing the two.

“Well, yes, but we practiced with Layla this whole week knowing how Avery plays.” Sirius shrugs. 

“So who’s subbing in?”

“They have some third year on the reserve squad,” Sirius informs them. “Alecto Carrow? Any of you birds know her?”

The three Gryffindor girls shake their heads. Sirius shrugs. “I think James is overreacting, but Layla’s a bit nervous and it’s infectious, I’m afraid.”

“Aw, she’ll be great,” Mary replies. “She saved nearly fourteen goals during the Ravenclaw match.”

“That’s what _I_ told her!” Sirius winks at Mary, and Lily sees Marlene flush with pleasure.

“Oi, Black!” James barks down the table. “You want to join us sometime this century?” 

“Oops, gotta go!” Sirius gives Marlene a perfunctory squeeze around her shoulder, hops up, and jogs back to the team. James doesn’t even look at Lily, just turns back to the team and resumes his conversation. 

The three girls finish their breakfasts, discussing what could possibly be wrong with Avery that he couldn’t play. Lily peeks over to the Slytherin table, but Severus, Mulciber, and Avery aren’t there. The Slytherin Quidditch team isn’t seated there either. Without thinking, Lily looks for Hestia and Alice at the Gryffindor table, but doesn’t see either of them. 

“Lil, do you want me to braid your hair for the match today?” Mary’s voice pulls Lily out of her reverie. 

“Oh, would you?” Lily exclaims. “Maybe just a braided headband?”

“Lily Evans, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were _excited_ about this match!” Marlene exclaims. 

“Why wouldn’t she be?” Mary points out. “Her new boyfriend is the Quidditch captain. Of course she’s excited. Aren’t you excited to see Black play?”

Marlene smiled. “Of course, but I like Quidditch!”

“I like Quidditch!” Lily says defensively. “Even if I don’t know…all the rules.”

Marlene snorts. “Try _any_ of the rules, Lil.”

“Oh, whatever!” Lily says. “As long as you help me with my makeup today, I will accept your slander about my enthusiasm for—what’s it called? Pidditch?” Marlene and Mary laugh. Lily joins them, feeling a warmth in her body that she’ll remember for years to come. 

As they head back up to their dormitory, Lily catches James’s eye and gives him a small wave. To her surprise, she sees him say something to the team and jogs over to Lily. 

“Can I have a moment?” he asks as he approaches her, his eyes on Mary and Marlene. 

“Wha—oh!” Mary jumps a bit at being addressed this way. “Yes, of course.” She loops an arm through Marlene’s, and they start up the stairs. 

“See you up there, Lil!” Marlene calls with a wink. 

Lily waves to them, then turns to James. “What’s up, Potter?”

“Are you ready for today?” he asks without preamble. “You have the jersey and the banner already, right?”

She nods. “Yeah, I’m ready,” she says. “You don’t have to worry, I’ll be the perfect girlfriend, Potter.”

He grins. “Great,” he says. “Because I know that Hess will be there.”

“Snape, too,” Lily adds. _What an odd conversation to be having._

“Cheers to centuries long house rivalries,” James replies with a grin. “Whole school’s going to turn out to watch us clobber Slytherin.”

“You seem pretty confident, Potter,” Lily teases. “Are you sure about—“

“Don’t joke with me about Quidditch, Evans,” James says warningly. “I haven’t got a sense of humor about losing, especially to Slytherin.”

“Okay, okay! Sorry! I didn’t know!”

“You are forgiven.” 

Lily looks over his shoulder. “Your team looks like they want me to return you.” The Gryffindor Quidditch team is looking expectantly at Lily, as if she’s stolen a particularly enviable amount of gold from them, and they expect a full return. 

He glances at them, then turns. “They need me, I suppose.” He hesitates. “Wish me luck?”

She stands on her tiptoes, placing a light kiss on his cheek. “Good luck, Potter. I know you’ll win. I have the utmost faith in you.” Ducking her head, she leaves the Great Hall, and positively skips up to her dormitory.

Once there, it’s nearly constant chaos. The girls all wait for their turn in the shower with Marlene magnanimously giving up her turn to Lily. “It’ll give Mary time to braid your hair before I do your face,” she explains. 

Lily scrubs her skin and washes her hair with her rose scented shampoo that she got in Diagon Alley because the scent magically lasts a full week. After relinquishing the bathroom to Marlene, she gets dressed slowly, hoping that Hestia will leave before she puts on Potter’s jersey and takes out the banner that not long ago lived in this dormitory as Hestia’s possessions. She tries on a few different things before finally deciding to wear jeans like she had planned all along with her school boots. 

“How do you manage all this hair?” Mary grumbles as she applies a bit of Sleakeazy’s Hair Potion to Lily’s hair to help tame it. 

“It just does its own thing, to be honest,” Lily replies apologetically. “I’ve just adapted to doing the bare minimum with it.”

“It’s fine,” Mary says, but Lily can see that her brow is beaded with sweat. After a few moments, Mary says, “Finally!” She secures the braids with tiny little pins, stepping back to examine her work. “Yes.” She smiles. “You look absolutely lovely.”

“Let me see,” Lily says, standing up from Mary’s bed to walk to the mirror, but is waylaid by Marlene.

“Oh no you don’t!” she says. “Stay put while I put these potions on your face.”

“Er—okay?” Lily plops back down on Mary’s bed while Marlene drags a chair over to face Lily. She takes out an array of small potions bottles, brushes, and powders. Lily sits patiently while Marlene works on her face, explaining what she’s doing as she goes. 

“Okay, and this is mascara,” Marlene says. “Wizards have their own things, but the Muggle stuff—“

“I think Lily knows what bloody mascara is, Mar,” Mary says from where she’s braiding her own hair. “We were raised by Muggles.”

“Oh yeah….” Marlene says, applying the mascara on Lily’s eyelashes. After a few minutes, Marlene does the same as Mary did earlier, stepping back to look critically at Lily. “Okay, you look _gorgeous_ , Lil. He’s not going to know what hit him.”

Lily’s eyes flick to Hestia, who is at her own wardrobe, getting dressed for the match. Her back is turned so they can’t see her face, but Lily thinks she sees Hestia’s back stiffen slightly. Lily wonders what Hestia will wear now that she can’t wear Potter’s jersey, but she quickly reminds herself that Hestia will soon have Potter’s jersey back. 

“Go look at yourself!” Marlene says. “I have to get dressed.” Lily surreptitiously tries to hide the scarlet and gold jersey as she rushes to the loo, hoping Hestia doesn’t see her carrying the offending garment. 

She stands in front of the mirror, and for a moment, she simply stares at herself. Her eyes seem impossibly wide and look a brighter green than she’s ever seen them. Marlene has put some kind of peach rouge on Lily’s cheeks, and a matching color on Lily’s lips, making Lily glow in a way that she didn’t know she could. Her braided headband somehow allows her curls to cascade down her back while staying out of her face, and Lily angles herself in the mirror to see her curls from the back. Mary’s done something with the Sleakeazy’s Hair Potion where her curls are still there, but a bit tamer and infinitely less frizzy. Lily marvels at herself, thinking back to when Severus insinuated that she wasn’t pretty enough for James Potter. _I might be too pretty for James Potter,_ she thinks to herself, chuckling a bit at her own little private joke. 

She unfolds the scarlet and gold jersey, holding it out in front of her. The number 12 was embroidered in gold thread on the front and back, and Potter’s name was stitched on carefully on the back. The roaring Gryffindor lion graced the front. With a small sigh, Lily pulls the jersey over her head, slipping her arms into the sleeves, letting it drop easily over her camisole, and tucking it into her jeans. She rolls up the too long sleeves so they sit right above her wrists. Then, as a final touch, she pulls her hair over it, letting her curls fall once again down her back. 

Lily examines herself in the mirror, thinking that she looks almost exactly as lovely as Hestia had looked in Potter’s jersey. She feels…positively cute. With a little shake, she pulls open the door to the loo and crashes directly into Hestia. 

“Oof!” Hestia cries as their bodies collide. Lily stumbles backward, catching herself with the edge of her hand on the small sink. Hestia grasps the doorjamb, straightening up. She opens her mouth to say something snarling, but then catches sight of Lily and her eyes widen. 

Lily shifts her weight awkwardly, a blush creeping up her neck, heating up her cheeks. Hestia’s eyes register the familiar jersey, and her face does something Lily doesn’t expect it to. Her eyes soften for a moment. Lily stares at Hestia, and Hestia stares back. There’s something inscrutable in Hestia’s expression. Finally, Hestia clears her throat. 

“Are you done in here?”

Lily nods mutely, stepping toward the door. Hestia steps aside to let Lily cross, then says, “You look pretty.”

Lily’s mind reels, but her mouth says, “Thank you.” In her periphery, she sees Mary and Marlene’s jaws fall open, their eyes disbelieving to what they were seeing in front of them. 

“See you at the match,” Hestia says airily before closing the door to the loo. 

Before either Mary or Marlene say anything completely obvious or mortifying in front of Alice, Lily steers them both out of the dormitory, down the steps, and out of the common room. It isn’t until they’re outside, well out of earshot of anyone who might possibly overhear that Marlene starts to laugh. “Serves her bloody right!” she wheezes, her hands clapped over her mouth as she tries to contain herself. 

“ _Marlene!_ ” Lily admonishes, but she’s smiling. 

“She’s right, Lil!” Mary says as the three girls stroll casually across the lawn. They have plenty of time before the match, and the weather is glorious for November with the gleaming sun glazing the grounds with its warmth and light and crisp leaves underfoot, giving the impression that the Hogwarts grounds were covered in a brilliant golden, red, and orange carpet. “She gave you so much grief about James, and now look—you’re with him, and she’s not.”

Lily swallows the guilty lump in her throat, feeling suddenly less exuberant than she did seconds before. “Er, right.”

“She basically predicted it, if we’re going to be honest,” Marlene crows. “Probably whined so much about you to him that he never forgot he’s always been smitten with you.”

 _He definitely forgot,_ Lily thinks, and wonders why she feels bitter at the thought. She doesn’t _want_ to be with Potter. She doesn’t _want_ to actually hold his hand in public. She doesn’t want to be wearing his jersey to the Quidditch match. Hestia should be doing all these things—she loves James. She’s always loved James. 

Lily, Mary, and Marlene are not the first students to reach the Quidditch pitch, but they are among some of the earlier arrivals. “I want a good seat,” Marlene says with a glint in her eye, and Lily knows it’s because she wants a good view of Sirius when he flies. Lily doesn’t blame her, and she tries to feign excitement as Marlene finds them seats right in front where they’ll be able to have an unobstructed view of the pitch. In truth, Lily’s anxiety is spiking in ways she didn’t know was possible. She’s wearing James’s jersey, and getting sly looks from students as they fill the stands around her. She feels incredibly _visible_ to everyone simply through the act of wearing Potter’s name on her back. Is this what it’s like to be with someone like James Potter? Does everyone just pay attention to you because he pays attention to you? Lily feels uneasy about this, but doesn’t have a chance to obsess over it too much because she feels an elbow in her ribs.

“Avery’s here!” Marlene says loudly, and Lily looks to where she’s pointing. Sure enough, in the stands across the pitch, there’s Avery flanked by Severus and Mulciber. Lily frowns. 

“What on earth is he doing here?”

“Doesn’t look even a bit sick,” Mary says in an undertone.

“He’s not playing on purpose!” Lily says indignantly. “He’s trying to throw off our whole strategy.” Annoyance on behalf of the Gryffindors grows within her, like bile. James had worked so hard to build a winning strategy and then—

“Look, here they are!” Marlene cries, letting out a whoop. The stands burst into applause as the tiny scarlet and green clad figures walk onto the pitch, each holding a broomstick. Lily sees Madam Swyler talking to James and Ash Warrington, the Slytherin Team Captain. She sees the two boys grasp each other’s hands briefly, hears the whistle blow, and then fourteen broomsticks soar into the air, each carrying a player clad in either Gryffindor red or Slytherin green. With a deep breath, Lily reaches into her bag and pulls out the rough cloth that she’d folded carefully last night. 

“What’s that?” Mary asks as Lily unfurls it, but she doesn’t need to answer because Marlene’s laugh tells them everything. 

“ _Potter’s Number One Fan!”_ Marlene shrieks. “I can’t _believe_ this! I wish I had a camera to capture this moment because in ten years, no one is going to believe that Lily Evans did this! In public!”

Lily ignores her, shaking the banner out and waving it around, trying to capture James’s attention. She sees him astride his broomstick, looking into the stands, and she knows he’s looking for her. With a flourish and a wave of her wand, the banner doubles in size. “Hold this end!” Lily instructs Mary and Marlene, and they comply. 

She looks back up at James, and he has a huge grin on his face. He’s spotted her. He raises a hand in greeting, and she reciprocates, waving back to him. She can feel eyes on her, but she’s not paying attention to anyone else right now, rooted to the spot by the sheer force of James Potter’s full attention devoted directly to her and her alone. 

“And they’re off!” the announcer shouts, the sound magically magnified throughout the stands. The students cheer as the teams get into formation, and Lily finds herself cheering alongside her peers. 

“Gryffindor in possession right now—Potter passes to Johnson, who is trying to make a shot—this is going to be tough, folks—Johnson passes to DiBruno who’s in the perfect spot to—she scores! That fifth year is a force to be reckoned with—word on the street is she’s going for captain next year after star Chaser Potter graduates and—oh, right, the score! Score is 10-0 to Gryffindor, Slytherin in possession!”

Lily has never paid such close attention to a Quidditch match in her life. Did the jersey have magical properties of its own, making her intensely focused on the seven members of her house that she had never paid much attention to before? She never felt very invested in these matches, choosing to contribute to the House Cup using her considerable academic gifts instead, but today, she’s laser focused on James as he zips through the air. 

“Warrington passes to Carrow, subbing in for Avery, and wow can that girl fly. She’s aiming to Ekram’s right and—yes! Slytherin scores! Score is tied, 10-10!” 

Groans fill the stands around Lily and she lets out one too. 

“Gryffindor now in possession, and Potter scores easily! Better luck next time to the Slytherin Keeper, Regulus Black—incidentally, playing against his own brother, Sirius Black, today! This is one sibling rivalry that you’ll want to keep your eyes on, folks! Gryffindor leading, 20-10!”

Marlene groans. “Sirius is going to be cross about that one.”

“Did you know he had a brother?” Lily asks out of the corner of her mouth, unwilling to take her eyes off of James. 

“Yeah, everyone knows about those two,” Marlene replies, her eyes similarly fixed on the match. “But Reg wasn’t on the Slytherin team until this year.”

“James hasn’t even mentioned it!” Lily exclaims. 

“Potter’s more Sirius’s brother than his own brother, Lily,” Marlene says absently. “Everyone knows that.”

“Ekram saves a tricky shot from Rosier now, passing back to DiBruno who’s speeding across the pitch—watch out, Black! _Regulus_ Black, that is—DiBruno sinks one in, and that brings the score 30-10 to Gryffindor. If Slytherin’s not careful, this game could get away from them! And there you go, everyone—Gryffindor Beater, Black, hits an expertly aimed Bludger at Warrington, and Slytherin loses possession. Gryffindor Captain Potter’s got the Quaffle now—watch him go!”

Lily does, remembering what she wrote about him flying in her journal. _When you fly, it’s really, really beautiful_. She admits now that she was correct in her assessment. James flew with a poise and grace that she could only hope to achieve, his hair flying back in the wind, his eyes focused intently on the goals and, yes! He had scored!

“Gryffindor’s pulling ahead now, 40-10, and Slytherin—oh, no, that’s a foul!”

A roar of outrage from the Gryffindor side competes with one of elation from the Slytherin side as Warrington collides with James, hard, and James slips sideways off his broom momentarily. Lily looks down—it’s at least a hundred feet down if he falls. Her heart in her throat, she watches him shout something to Warrington who makes a rude gesture with his hand. James clambers back onto his broom; Lily breathes a sigh of relief. 

“Penalty against Slytherin Chaser Warrington for blatching, and yes, Johnson’s put it through. Gryffindor leads 40-10 with no sign of the Snitch yet, leaving both Seekers frustrated and more open to attack. Gryffindor back in possession, DiBruno making her way to the other end of the pitch and, ack! She’s lost possession thanks to a Bludger from Donald Greengrass, Slytherin’s new third year Beater! Slytherin in possession now and—ahh, block it, Layla! Oops, no, Carrow gets another one past Ekram, and it’s 40-20 to Gryffindor. And—what was that?!”

A collective gasp goes up as Regulus Black, the Slytherin Keeper, abandons his post entirely to soar up to Sirius, grabbing Sirius’s club and whacking a Bludger directly toward James, who swerves out of the way. The Bludger is still on a course of destruction, however, and it collides directly with Anton Burke, the Slytherin Seeker, who lets out an audible groan. 

“What the fuck!” Marlene cries, her fingers covering her mouth. 

“What happens now?” Lily and Mary ask in unison. 

“It’s a penalty, but why would Black _do_ that?” Marlene says angrily. “He’s a shite Keeper already, he won’t be able to save a penalty to save his pathetic life.”

Marlene was right. James makes the penalty with an effortlessness that became him, and then turns to look right at Lily, saluting her with a massive smile on his face. Someone wolf whistles behind her, and Lily can’t help it: she turns beet red. Across the pitch, she sees Severus glowering at her. She lifts her chin toward him defiantly. She doesn’t want Severus to have the satisfaction of knowing that he got to her, shaking her confidence in herself, affecting her relationship with James, impacting her self-worth—and so she looks back at James and right in front of Severus, blows a kiss to him. 

She sees James laugh with his head thrown back, and then— _wham!_ A Bludger collides into James’s back, sending him lurching forward. Wheeling around, he zooms upward, and she knows he’s berating himself for getting distracted. 

“Potter’s been hit, but he seems fine. No doubt that kiss from Lily Evans more than makes up for a hit of that magnitude!” 

The crowd laughs, and Lily ducks her head, embarrassed. She spies Hestia who is trying to seem like she’s very okay with this comment, but failing spectacularly. She looks as unpleasant as, if not more so, than Severus. Lily whips her head back around as Gryffindor scores again. 

“Folks, it isn’t going to be easy for Slytherin to catch up now that Gryffindor is up by four goals and—was that the Snitch?”

Everyone in the stands goes wild now as Smith and Burke are neck and neck, hurtling through the air, soaring further and further away from the stands, two blurs. Right at that moment, Slytherin scores as Layla becomes distracted by the possibility of the win. James roars at Layla, but no one is watching now. Everyone’s eyes are fixed on Smith and Burke. Hera extends an arm, knocking Burke’s out of the way, and then--

“Yes!” the announcer calls. “She’s done it! Hera Smith of Gryffindor has the Snitch, winning the match for Gryffindor House! This is the second win for Gryffindor in a row, basically clinching their Quidditch Cup win. What a year it’s been for James Potter, folks. Quidditch Captain and Head Boy--”

“Let’s go!” Marlene says, pulling on Lily’s arm, pulling her . 

“Go where?!” Lily asks, torn between wanting to cheer in the stands and to follow Marlene. 

“Down to the pitch!” 

Marlene grasps Lily’s wrist, and instinctually, Lily grabs Mary’s arm. The three girls race down the steps that lead down to the pitch, encountering other students doing the exact same thing they’re doing. Once they reach the ground, Marlene breaks into a full on sprint to where the Gryffindor team has just landed, looking windswept and exhilarated with their win. With a great leap, Lily watches Marlene launch herself into Sirius’s arms, who catches her with a great barking laugh. 

“Go, Lily!” Mary says, elbowing Lily hard in the ribs. 

“Go where?”

“Oh my goodness!” Mary huffs, pushing Lily toward James, who is surrounded by his team. “Go to him!”

And before she understands exactly what she’s doing, she jogs into the scrum, pushing aside sweaty Quidditch players, and reaches for Potter’s hand. When she grabs it, he looks at her with wonder as she reaches her other arm around his neck, pulling his mouth toward hers and kissing him hard. 

It’s nothing like the other kisses they’ve shared. James doesn’t hesitate, dropping his broom and looping both his arms around her waist, lifting her up so her feet leave the ground. She feels one of his warm hands slide up her back and into her hair, and she does the same, burying a hand in his hair, pulling her body into his. She hears him groan slightly, and she pulls away, gasping, looking down at him with a question in her eyes. He wordlessly answers, reaching for her face and bringing their mouths crashing together again. An excited shiver climbs up her spine, and the raucous noise around them goes quiet for the tiniest moment, and in that fraction of a second, it’s only Lily’s heart drumming directly over James’s hard-beating heart, the rhythm the exact same. The moment is infinite and yet all too short.

She feels her feet hit the ground, feels James pull back, and her eyes open, looking into his face. He’s gazing at her intently and then he’s not, his attention being pulled away by Sirius clapping him on the back, laughing, and James pulls Sirius into half a hug because his other arm is still solid against Lily’s waist. With her cheeks burning, Lily pulls away fighting the throng of excited students as she tries to escape. A knot of humiliation is building in her stomach and she’s fighting back tears as she feels her body shunted to and fro in the excitement. 

“Lily!” James is calling her name now, but she has managed to break free from the crowd and is now booking it back to the castle, her mind a jumble and her tears flowing freely. 

* * *

Lily is hiding. 

It’s been hours since the Gryffindor vs. Slytherin Quidditch match after which she stupidly snogged Potter in front of the entire school. She’s still not sure why she did it, but as she hides out in the Owlery, her mind goes back to the moment that he lifted her up, his arm tight around her waist, and it makes her feel lightheaded to remember how good it felt. 

With a sigh, she attaches a small scroll of parchment to the leg of a school owl and sends it off, hoping her note is received and responded to quickly. With another heavy sigh, she sinks down onto a step of the Owlery, burying her face in her hands. In her mind’s eye, images flash like those slideshows Professor Rial shows in Defense lessons, but instead of dangerous curses, Lily’s slideshow is a series of Petunia, Severus, and Hestia—all her worst memories replaying over and over in her head. 

She never thinks this much about them because under normal circumstances, she could simply put whatever she was feeling in a journal and put it away. But since her journals had disappeared, Lily hadn’t written a single word for fear that a new journal would be found. Her brain felt like it would positively explode if she couldn’t sort through everything that was going on. 

There are footsteps coming up the Owlery, and Lily lifts her head to see an untidy mess of hair and a face with glasses peer into the small space. _James._ He looks at her carefully, noting her pale, drawn face as he takes another step into the room. 

“Hey, Evans,” he says carefully, pocketing a piece of parchment. “Everyone’s been looking for you for hours.” 

“What are you doing here?”

He gestures. “Why do people come to the Owlery? I’m just sending a letter to my mum. Telling her we won the match.” 

She gives him a tight smile. “I was sending a letter, too. Sorry. I should leave. I’m sure Mary and Marlene are worried.” She starts to stand up, but then he sits down next to her, putting a gentle hand on her arm. Lily stops, sitting back down on the step. _Here it comes_ , Lily thinks. _He’s come to tell me that he doesn’t like me that way and—_

“You were brilliant today at the match,” James says. _Wait, what?_ She gapes at him. He flashes her a mischievous smile. “Snogging me like that in front of Hess _and_ Snape? Bloody genius. They both looked mad enough to spit.”

 _Ah_. He thought the kiss had been a calculated move on her part instead of something brash and emotional. But now he had invented an explanation for her. She felt herself sag with relief, but she shrugged instead. 

“I thought you could use one more win, Potter,” she says, changing her tone entirely to be bright, cheerful, and entirely unlike how she was feeling. 

“Hess cornered me in the common room after the match to rip me a new one after your little stunt.”

Lily raised her eyebrows. “You here to break up with me, Potter? You and Hestia getting married in a lovely June wedding?”

“Are you kidding? When my fake girlfriend is right here, making my ex-girlfriend incredibly jealous? Why would I stop now?”

“Why is she so angry?”

His grin falters a bit, Lily notices, but he recovers quickly. “Just mad I moved on so quickly, I suppose. She said some other things like how we’re humiliating her and how you’re supposedly a cold bitch, but I think—“

“How can she be mad about that when she already has a new bloke?” Lily interrupts. “Didn’t you say that she ditched you?”

He nods. “That’s what I said to her, too! Bloody hypocrite.”

“Why is she always so hacked off at you?”

He looks at Lily for a moment, and she thinks he might actually be upset that she asked him a personal question about Hestia for once. But when he speaks, his voice is measured and level, as if he’s verbalizing this for the first time and trying to find the right words. “She thinks I’m different than I…was. I mean, _you_ of all people know how I used to be, Evans. I was…”

“A massive bullying prat,” Lily finishes for him. 

He rolls his eyes, but he nods in agreement. “Yes. An arrogant toerag, I think you once called me.”

“Well, you _were!_ ”

“I know. You said as much in your dia—journal.” He pauses. “And then…something happened. Something that scared me pretty badly.”

“What?”

“I—it’s private,” he says lamely, and Lily knows what it’s like to have a secret so she doesn’t pry. “But it made me realize that I couldn’t keep down that path. I had to grow up, stop being a sodding knob, and start thinking about my future. Where I wanted to go. What I wanted to do. I got pretty down in the dumps there for a bit.”

Lily is listening, rapt in his words. Everything he’s saying, she’s already noticed about him. She noticed that he stopped acting out. She noticed when he stopped teasing the younger students. She watched him turn inward, turn serious, and it was a transformation unlike one she’d ever seen before. 

“So then what?”

He looks directly into her eyes, and Lily notices that his eyes have small gold flecks in them. “So then, Hess decided that I was boring or something. We rowed a lot this last summer.”

Lily wants to look away from him, but she stays focused. What he’s telling her is important, she realizes. She would never forget this conversation for the rest of her life. “I’m sorry,” Lily says quietly, and he shrugs.

“She felt led on or something. That I wanted to just…get bloody serious and start thinking about the future. She just wanted to have fun this year, and of course she does! It’s our last year, you know? You get it. And I wanted that, too. But then Dumbledore made me Head Boy. Daft, he is. Absolutely mad.”

“He’s not,” Lily says gently. “You’re a very good Head Boy.”

James laughs. “You can’t seriously mean that, Evans! You’re always saying how I don’t do my fair share and—“

“I’m just having you on, you know,” she says. “Messing with you how you do me.” There’s a short silence, then Lily speaks again. “What next?”

“Huh?” He looks deep in thought now. “Well, she wasn’t pleased that I was Head Boy. I couldn’t sneak us out to Hogsmeade anymore and—“

“Wait, you know how to sneak out to Hogsmeade? Have you ever been caught?”

He flushes now. “Almost,” he admits. “But Filch doesn’t know how we do it.”

“How do you do it?”

He winks. “That’s a different secret for a different day, Evans.”

She shrugs. “Fine, but you have to tell me!”

“I will. I promise.”

They smile at each other for a moment, and then Lily pokes his arm. “So? You became Head Boy and then…?” 

James looks away now, ducking his head to avoid her eyes. “I wanted to…I dunno. Let him know he hadn’t made a mistake, I suppose. I wanted to—“

“Prove yourself,” Lily whispers. “You wanted to show you were worthy of being Head Boy.”

He looks at her in wonder again, like he did when she first grabbed his hand on the Quidditch pitch today. “Yes,” he says quietly. “Exactly.” He pauses. “You won’t like this next bit.”

“It’s okay,” Lily replies. Her mind felt clearer in this moment with Potter than it had in the last three weeks. Sitting here, talking with him just like they were friends, felt suddenly like the only place she wanted to be. “Tell me.”

“When Hess found out you were Head Girl, she kind of lost her head a little bit.”

Lily smiles wryly. “She doesn’t like me. It’s alright. I know this already.”

James shakes his head. “No, she doesn’t. She remembers back when—“ he gestures vaguely. “—I fancied you. I think she’s always been a bit jealous of you, Evans.”

“She doesn’t need to be!” Lily’s voice is filled with vexation now, a twinge of frustration shooting through her. “I’ve never even…tried. I mean, I know you know about the journal, but those were just…things I was noticing. And anyway, that was private and—I just…I’ve never given her any indication that I have ever liked you.” She pauses. “Because I haven’t.”

“I _know_ , Evans. I know. It’s not about you—it’s about _me_ ,” he says, trying to calm Lily down. “She’s never believed that I’ve gotten over it when you told me you—you know. Weren’t interested in me like that. So she _really_ didn’t like it when she learned we’d be spending loads of time together this year doing Head stuff.”

Lily feels a small, petty stab of satisfaction at this. If Hestia was going to throw Lily over for an offense that Lily hadn’t even committed, at least she was still carrying around her own insecurities as a penance for how atrociously she had treated her former friend. 

“So what finally made her—you know.”

“Ditch me?” James shrugs. “She told me I wasn’t fun anymore, and she had some new bloke.”

“Wait, do you know who it is?” Lily asks suddenly, her interest piqued. “Her new bloke?”

He nods. “But I won’t tell!” he says. “Too embarrassing.”

“For you?”

“Nah,” he grins. “For her.” He stops. “I guess a bit for me, too.”

“Why are you still protecting her, Potter?” Lily says in disbelief. “She literally cheated on you and then threw you over for some random guy, and you won’t even spill her secrets.”

“Hey, she knows a lot about me, too!” he says defensively. “If I tell everyone about her new bloke, she could tell everyone something embarrassing about me.”

“Like what?”

James blushes suddenly, and Lily understands now. Hestia _was_ James’s first. Lily knows this in theory, but still, having Potter confirm what everyone already speculated was the case feels a bit odd. Lily imagines what it would be like to see Professor Binns, their ghost History of Magic professor, in his former flesh and bone body, and she likened this moment to that. There’s something extremely strange about James corroborating a rumor about himself when he so frequently was evasive or would downright refuse to tell her certain things. Lily thinks back to that Thursday night that he left the common room and didn’t return until very late. She had asked him about it, and he’d point blank refused to answer. If she didn’t count herself, James Potter might be the most secretive person she knows. 

“Look, I know everyone thinks I’m some—“ he gestures. “—playboy or something, but I’m not, okay?” 

“You don’t have to—“

“I’ve only been with her. I’m not some Casanova or whatever you all think.” He sounds defensive, but Lily can’t help it. She starts to laugh. He looks horrified as he watches her lean back, cover her mouth, and laugh until she can’t breathe. 

“Potter—“ she gasps. “That is—“ She takes a deep shuddering breath. “—not the rumor that you think everyone is spreading, okay? I wish I had better news but unfortunately, everyone knows you were a snowy white virgin before Hestia Jones got her claws in you.” She starts laughing again, this time leaning forward to place her forehead on her knees. 

He gapes at her. “No way!” 

“I regret to inform you that yes, indeed, way,” Lily says, wiping her eyes. “No one thinks you’re a playboy of any sort.”

“But I’ve had—you know—other girlfriends!” His voice is small now, and Lily reaches over to give his shoulder a reassuring pat. 

“I know, Potter,” she coos, and he shrugs off her condescending gesture. 

“Hey, Evans, you know— _we_ could start a rumor that—“

“Absolutely not, Potter!” Lily counters. “Find someone else to have fake sex with! Besides, Hestia would never take you back if she thought we had _sex_. She’s _very_ serious about sex. I remember that about her.”

“Okay, yeah,” he says. “Okay, bad plan.”

“Besides, you don’t want the whole school thinking _we_ had sex. I’m Muggleborn!”

He looks over at her now, and his expression scares her. All mirth was gone from his face. He turned to face her now, their knees touching. “Evans,” he says, and his voice is deadly serious. Lily knows that she’s crossed a line with him that she didn’t even know she _could_ cross with him. “Evans, you know that I don’t care about that, right? You know that all this…Pureblood, Muggleborn mania is just…completely fucking fake.”

The way he spoke—his low, intense voice—combined with his piercing stare went right through Lily, and when she looked into his face, his face was etched with...not anger, exactly, but something much deeper than that. 

“I was only joking,” she mutters. 

“I know,” he acknowledges. “But I’m sorry that all these fucking hysterical blood status obsessives—they don’t want to admit that we’re dying out, that we _need_ Muggleborns and half-blood witches and wizards in our world. What’s the cost of barring all Muggleborns from coming to Hogwarts?” He pauses, his eyes blazing now. “The _cost_ , Evans, is that all the Pureblood families have to start marrying and having ugly little Pureblood kids with each other. They’re advocating for inbreeding, Evans. They just don’t know it yet.”

“Potter, it’s oka—“

“It’s not okay!” His voice rings through the Owlery, and a few barn owls look down disapprovingly at him. “Sorry,” he says apologetically. “But it’s not okay. It’s not.”

“They’re just scared,” Lily says, repeating a line she heard from Severus once. “Their way of life—they think it’s going to be eradicated.”

“If it’s so fragile that they want us to take these extreme measures, then it _should_ be eradicated!” He pauses. “I’m Pureblood. I know my privilege. My parents—they have money and land and a name that people respect. It’s my responsibility—no, my _duty_ to stand up for what I believe in. We don’t support Voldemort. _I_ don’t support Voldemort.”

The name hangs in between them. Lily’s never actually heard anyone say it in front of her. Whenever Mary mentions it, Marlene makes her stop. 

“Well—“ Lily speaks haltingly. “Thanks, Potter.”

“Evans.” He looks at her imploringly. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that someone made you feel like you’re not worth their time because you’re Muggleborn. You’re worth a thousand of whomever that idiot is, and they don’t deserve you. You know that, right?”

“Yes. I know that.” 

Her turns away from her, looking embarrassed, scuffing his trainer against the stone floor. “Sorry.”

She shakes her head. “You don’t have to be sorry, Potter.” She rubs her hands on her denim-clad thighs now, suddenly noticing how cold it’s become in the Owlery. “Hey, do you want to go back to the common room? It’s nearly seven. I bet the party’s still raging.”

“Sure.” 

They take the stairs together in silence, and when they reach the common room, they do indeed find a celebration still in full swing. Marlene and Sirius are ensconced in an armchair in a dark corner, their limbs indistinguishable from one another. Lily spends the evening sitting in between Mary and Remus Lupin, chatting amicably over butterbeers. 

It isn’t until she’s in bed later that she realizes that James never owled his letter. 

* * *

The next morning, an owl shows up for Lily at the window of her dormitory. She hears the soft _tap tap tap_ on the frosty windowpane, and slips out of bed before anyone else can see her. She unties the small package from the owl’s leg, gives it a Knut for its trouble, and slips back into bed, clutching the package close to her chest. 

With a swish of her wand, her bed hangings close even tighter, so tight that she thinks _Lumos._ Her wand lets out a small, bright beam of light. She begins to remove the coarse brown paper, but it’s so loud in the near silence of the dormitory. _Silencio,_ she says in her mind, and a small pocket of stillness encompasses her. She knows that the charm has worked and that no one can hear her open the brown paper package that she had ordered yesterday. 

Carefully, she slips the wrapping off, and with a sigh of relief, looks upon her purchase. 

A slim, black journal, tied up with a bright gold ribbon. 

Without hesitation, she summons a quill and ink and begins to write in earnest, her mind still at last. 


	4. Chapter Four

**Author's Notes:** Thank you, thank you, **fanficreader938!** Your feedback has been so critical to shaping this story and building Lily's voice.

Thank you to **Dancingonstars & sophie **for your generosity with your reviews ** _\--_** y'all make this story worth writing. 

This chapter is looooong, but I'm so pleased with it. Shippers, we get some sweet moments here. If you're reading this story & have feedback, questions, or just general nice words to share, please do! Your fic writers love reviews ;) Thank you for reading & hope everyone is staying safe.

* * *

**Chapter Four**

_It's as if I'm seeing you for the first time. I can't seem to stop thinking about you, and that's annoying. It's annoying to me how much of my mind you currently occupy. Is this just a dating thing? Did Hestia live in your mind the way that you live in mine? Maybe this is just how it is when you have someone, even though, I suppose, you're my fake someone. Still, it's more real than anything else I've ever had before._

_When I kissed you after the Quidditch match, it wasn't for Severus. It wasn't for Hestia. I was so happy to see you after the match, so happy to see that you won, so happy to even be affiliated with you. Your joy is infectious. It's like, when you're happy, everyone around you wants some of that, you know? When you're happy, Sirius mirrors you exactly. It makes him so happy that you chose him to be your best friend, that you see him like a brother, that you give him so much of your time. I'm pretty sure Remus would swim the length of the freezing cold lake for you if you told him it would make you happy. And whenever Peter is around, he looks at you like you're his extremely cool older brother who includes him in all his harebrained schemes, who would give you whatever you asked for, even if you asked him to kill for you. He'd do it, but he trusts that you'd never ask because you wouldn't. He trusts you implicitly._

_I haven't always had that. I loved someone once who was so deeply unhappy. I tried my best to make them laugh-to make them smile, but I don't think they ever really wanted to. No matter what I tried, it never worked. I did everything, but I think they're totally lost to me now, but I can't help but hope that they find their way back._

_When you kissed me back after the Quidditch match, what were you thinking? Did you wonder why it was happening as it was happening? Later, you told me how great I was for thinking about Severus and Hestia in that moment—but the only person I was thinking about was you._

* * *

The prefect classroom was warm. Too warm. Stifling, even. Lily feels sweat bead on her brow, and she reaches up to wipe her face with the back of her hand.

"Potter," she says heavily. "Can you please put the fire out?"

He glances over at her. "Are you too warm?"

"It's bloody roasting in here," she replies, shrugging off her cardigan and tossing it over the back of her chair.

He points his wand at the hearth, and the fire reduces until it is glowing embers crackling gently. Lily blinks with relief, leaning forward to cup her chin in her palm. She can still feel a line of sweat sliding in between her shoulder blades, and she shifts uncomfortably in her chair.

"Evans, am I boring you?" James looks at her, the firelight reflected in his glasses. "You've been fidgeting since we got in here, but seriously we have to get this done before the prefect meeting next week or I'm pretty sure all the seventh years will just shack up with whoever they want, and then we'll have a baby boom on our hands next summer."

"Well, it's not exactly the most exciting thing we've ever done," Lily grumbles. "All we have to do is put people in rooms."

"Ahhh, Evans, you don't understand the fine art of _politics."_ He waggles his eyebrows at her. "Haven't you ever planned a ball?"

"What? No. Why on earth would I ever need to plan a ball?" Lily leans back in her seat. "Wait, have _you_ planned a ball, Potter?"

He blushes. "Well, my mum has and—"

"Oh, yeah," Lily muses. "I forgot that you're rich sometimes, Potter. Because of your atrocious manners."

He ignores her. "You can't just sit people by one another without considering the _ramifications_ of where you sit everyone. Same thing goes for rooms. For example—" he looks down at the list of students. "—I'd never put you with, say, Hestia."

"Why not?" Lily says. "We live in the same dormitory."

"Good point," James says. "But this is an entirely different environment. She could lose it and strangle you in your sleep. Because she misses me so much, you see."

Lily looks alarmed. "Is she likely to do that?"

"Nah, I told you—" He holds his palms open, his eyes wide. "—she wouldn't hurt a fly."

"You're a bit blind when it comes to her, Potter," Lily replies. "But it can't be helped, I suppose." She gestures toward the parchment in front of him. "Tell me some names, I'll put them in a room. And can we hurry? I still have my Runes homework to do this evening."

"Okay, okay!" He looks down at the list. "Alright, obviously myself and the lads will go together. You have a double in there?"

She looks down at the floorplan of the inn. "Yes. Here on the second floor."

"And you and your mates will be right next to us," he says, pointing at her parchment. "Write it down."

"Don't you think that's a bit obvious?" she rolls her eyes. "Everyone knows _we_ do the room assignments!"

"Evans, this is what couples do on the trip!" His voice takes on a cajoling quality.

"Okay, what if you and Hestia are back together before then?"

He looks stumped, as if he hasn't thought about this outcome. "Well—then I suppose I can swap with someone near her."

"Okay, I'll keep a double open near her then," Lily says, looking for a room for Hestia. "Here's two doubles. She'll want to be with Alice, but who else?" Lily thinks back to the party. "Emmeline and Alison?"

"Yeah, she likes them," James replies, crossing their names off his list. "Okay, I think Blake Johnson can go with those two Ravenclaw blokes he's always around with. Goldstein and…" He drags his quill down his parchment. "—Kavinsky."

They go back and forth like this for a while, James reading names and Lily scribbling the names down on the floorplan. At one point, James rekindles the fire so it's burning low and slow in the hearth. Lily crosses her legs, then uncrosses them, feeling fidgety again as James reexamines his list.

"Alright, we have everyone!" he says finally, throwing down his quill and pushing back on the back legs of his chairs, his arms going behind his head.

"Hey wait…" Lily looks down at her floorplan. "Did you get any special requests?"

"Just Sirius asking to be with Marlene _exclusively_." James rolls his eyes. "I told him Dumbledore would kill me if I allowed any shenanigans during the trip."

Lily laughs. "I'm not sure I believe that you won't allow your mates to get up to anything during the only real trip we get to take during our entire time as students!"

"I'm Head Boy so…guess you'll have to believe it." But he smirks wickedly. "Speaking of—" He turns to look toward the door, ensuring no one is lurking there. "We should figure out how we're going to…y'know. Do _this_ during the trip."

"With any luck, you'll be back with Hestia, and Severus will be mad enough at me for dating you that he'll never speak to me again." Lily shrugs, standing up to stretch, hoping to expel some of her fidgety energy.

"Okay, but just in case."

Lily frowns. "Potter—are you…" she pauses, not sure what she wants to say. "…you're still okay with this arrangement, right?"

"What? Of course. Hess has never been more obsessed with me!" He stretches his arms out wide, his shirtsleeves rolled up carelessly. "She wrote me a _note_."

Lily raises her eyebrows. "A…note?"

"I always wrote her notes," he explains. "But she never wrote them back. Not once. I used to mess with her about it."

"Why didn't she write them back?" Lily asks, genuinely curious, as she drops back into her seat.

James shrugs. "Who knows why she does anything." He yawns widely, rubbing his eyes underneath his glasses. "Planning balls is bloody exhausting. This entire year is exhausting."

Lily nods, only half listening to him now. Her mind goes to exactly the place she doesn't want it to go. _If I were your girlfriend, I'd write you a note for every single day we had together. You wouldn't even have to ask._

"I suppose we could do the usual stuff," Lily says, breaking the silence. "We could have meals together and stuff." He opens his eyes. "At Stonehenge, I mean."

He nods in agreement. "And you'll sit with me on the train, right?"

"If I heard correctly, Sirius has already asked Marlene to sit with you lot, so I'm not sure I have much choice."

James shakes his head. "Evans, I should probably thank you for getting drunk and spilling McKinnon's big secret to the world. I've never seen Sirius this smitten except for with Rosemerta."

"Rosemerta? The barkeep at the Three Broomsticks?" Lily's eyes widen. "Sirius fancies her? Isn't she quite a bit older than us?"

"Age doesn't _really_ matter in that regard, Evans, come on." James scoffs. "Have you _seen_ Rosemerta?"

"Well, yes, and she's quite pretty but—"

"But nothing. All the lads fancy her. And some of the ladies, too!" He ends his sentence with a wink, and Lily smirks.

"Fine, fine! I'll sit with you on the train." She pauses. "Do you want _me_ to write you notes?"

He stares at her, the hint of a mischievous grin hovering about his lips. "Well, Evans, you've already written me a whole book!"

"Oh, shut up!" she snaps irritably, standing up to scoop up her books. "I should have known better than to expect you to take anything seriously, Potter."

"Whoa whoa whoa, don't get your knickers in a twist, Evans, come on!" He's laughing at her frustration. "I would _love_ a note from you!" She rolls her eyes at him, and he laughs even harder. "Honest! Even better if you give it to me in the Great Hall, in front of everyone. I know how good you are at public displays, after all." He winks at her.

"You need to let it goooooooo!" Lily sings, scooping up her schoolbag and sliding the floorplan in among her books and quills. "I can make copies of the floorplan before the meeting next week, if you'd like."

"Sure," James agrees, falling into step next to her as they depart the prefect classroom. "But let's not change the subject just yet, Evans. Are you really going to write me notes?"

"Why do you need a note when apparently I've already written you an entire bloody book?" Lily grumbles. "Isn't that what you said?"

"Yeah, but—" He pauses. "A note would be nice. Now and then."

"Why don't _you_ write _me_ a note?" Lily suggests, her stomach knotting up at the mere idea of James giving her a note in front of everyone.

"I wrote you one when we started this thing. Didn't you get it?"

" _Nice job today?_ Three words is not a note, Potter. It wasn't even ' _great_ job today' but just 'nice job today.' Literally, not a note. Barely a full sentence."

He laughs. "Okay, okay, okay! I'm not exactly—who's the Muggle bloke with all the sonnets?"

"Shakespeare?"

"Yeah, him!" James exclaims. "I'm not exactly Shakespeare, but I think Hess probably won't love if she sees me writing you a note, either. That was kind of our _thing_ , you know?"

"Fine, but if you write me a note, it has to be something worth being jealous of!" Lily's not sure where these words are coming from. She feels like kicking herself.

"Uh, same goes for you, Evans!"

"You know I am more than capable of writing a perfectly adequate note, Potter," she huffs. "

"Myself and two other blokes," he grumbles. "The last bloke must have been overjoyed to learn that Lily Evans loved him once. What'd you say his name was again?"

Lily shakes her head before speaking. "No way, Potter. You'll never find out."

"I'll find out," he says, a cunning glint in his eye. "I'll find out if it's the last thing I ever do."

"If you find out, it _will_ be the last thing you ever do," Lily says sternly. "Because I will simply have to kill you."

He laughs again, and Lily can't decide if she loves when he laughs or hates it. She privately resolves to stop making him laugh as much as she does because she can't get used to his laughter, not when it gives her as much pleasure as it currently does.

* * *

_If I wrote you a note, a real one, it would say this:_

_Dear James (because I would obviously call you James, not Potter),_

_You're kind of a surprise. Everything you do is new and different from what I expected. I spent so many years hating you that I forgot that I had the option to like you. And now I like you too much._

_The things you do are what surprise me the most. When Dumbledore picked you to be Head Boy, I thought he was completely mad. In fact, I went to his office to tell him as much. I told him, "He's a bully, Professor. Remember what he did to Severus Snape in fifth year? Remember my worm scarf? Remember all those times he was caught out of bed? He's probably served more detentions than all the other students combined." Do you know what Dumbledore said to me?_

" _You are prejudiced, Miss Evans." Then he proceeded to tell me how you haven't been that great, bullying prat for a long, long time. He said I should give you a shot, let you show me that you're capable of being Head Boy. He told me that he picked both of us to lead the students because of the dark times we're in. "They need you both," he told me. But I was still skeptical, even though I knew that you were different. I just didn't want to be right because that would mean I wasted all those years angry at you, fighting with you, when really I could have given you the chance you always needed to prove yourself._

_I guess I had no choice but to listen to Dumbledore, because I did let you show me, and you proved him right._

_You may be the best Head Boy this school has ever had. All the students come to you for advice on everything outside of schoolwork. When Adam Wallace's parents were separating, he came to you, and you were so unfailingly kind in that way that only you know how to be. When he left, he was positively glowing, and you were just looking around like, "What? This is just who I am."_

_That time that Amelia Twylock got dumped, she was feeling so down on herself and crying in the common room, and you went and sat down next to her, talked to her over a game of chess, and when you were done, she looked much less miserable. I wonder what you told her._

_You're even kind to Slytherins. Those Slytherin first years who somehow ended up in the Divination classroom when they were supposed to go to the dungeons for Potions—in the past, you would have laughed at them, mocking them for their mistake. But I remember the first week of this term, you gently took the map from their hands, turned it over and directed them back to where they needed to go. You even told them about the trick step—the very same one you let_ _**me** _ _get stuck in in fourth year._

_There's also just how everyone sees you that you don't even notice. Like the Quidditch team. They adore you. Remember before the Slytherin match when you were talking to me, and they were glaring at me like I'd stolen every galleon, sickle, and knut from their Gringotts accounts? You're a good captain—you're a good_ _**leader** _ **.** _They look up to you, and you give everyone on the team a chance to shine, to show who they are. You're a bit like Dumbledore in that way. You always want to give everyone the opportunity to be great. I wish you had let Severus have that chance. I think you'd see that he could have been great too, if you'd only given him some of what you offer so freely to others._

_Sirius, Remus, and Peter are like the planets revolving around you, their sun. They would do anything for you, and I'm pretty sure you'd do anything for any of them. Remus is ill so often, and yet you treat him like you would anyone else. Not an invalid or an inconvenience, but like a brother._

_The thing that surprises me the most about you, though, is how easy it is to please you. When we went flying, I was barely four feet above the ground, and you were still so excited that I even got on the broomstick. You were so patient and good and kind with me that day, and when we were watching the sun rise, I felt like I had finally accomplished something that I had always wanted to do. And that you had helped me. I never once in my life imagined that you would be the one up there with me. I felt safe, and you kept reassuring me that I wouldn't fall, and I knew in that moment that you actually wouldn't have let me. That you would have caught me._

_I broke my ankle that day because I discovered that you had dimples, and those were a surprise, too. I saw them, and now I can't unsee them. I wish I could unsee them because I know our whole thing is fake. You're still in love with Hestia, and I can see why. She is beautiful and fearless and has never yelled at you the way I have. She doesn't have a dodgy former best friend who is probably a Death Eater, and she likes to have fun._

_These are all the things that surprise me about you. I keep thinking back to that conversation with Dumbledore and how right he was. I_ _**was** _ _prejudiced, but more than that, I was scared. I was scared that everything I had noticed about you would be true. I was scared that all my feelings, everything I filled that dumb, stupid journal with, would all be correct and then I would know that I was wrong to hate you so much for so long. I was wrong not to give you the chances that you give everyone else. I suppose that's why Dumbledore made you Head Boy. He wanted to offer you the generosity that you offer everyone else. He was right. I was wrong._

_I suppose this is too long to be a note, and it's more like a letter. Oh well._

_Love (because if I wrote you a real letter this long, it would only be because we're in love),_

_Lily Evans_

* * *

The best part of patrolling Hogwarts after dark is watching the portraits as they slumber. Even the animals in the portraits sleep at nighttime, their small snores filling the corridors with a soft rustling that makes it feel like they're in a dormitory all their own. Lily smiles at the thought of the suits of armor considering one another roommates, the way Lily herself considers Mary, Marlene, Alice, and Hestia.

"Even that mad knight Sir Cadogan is asleep," James says in a low voice, indicating a portrait on the third floor of a knight fast asleep next to a fat gray pony in a field of wildflowers.

"Careful," Lily whispers, giggling. "He may wake and challenge us both to a duel."

"Good point."

Both Lily and James are on patrol tonight because the Ravenclaw prefect who was supposed to patrol with James this evening is the hospital wing after mysteriously sprouting small purple tentacles all over his body. Lily suspects he may have been dueling, but he refused to tell anyone anything.

"You will ask Gerhardt about the tentacles, right?" Lily asks James in a low voice as they pass two snoring suits of armor.

He grins. "Sure, but I can't guarantee he'll tell me anything. He wouldn't even tell Pomfrey, and she can't even take points. Daft idiot! Hope Pomfrey can get rid of the tentacles all the same. Imagine looking like that forever."

Lily wordlessly agrees, and they patrol on, giving cursory glances into classrooms and peering around corners to ensure no students were out of bed. As they climb up to the fourth floor, James says, "Watch out for the trick step." With his long legs, he steps over it easily, holding a hand out to Lily. With a resigned sigh, she takes his hand, muttering.

"What was that?" James asks, his head cocked to the side, as they start their ascent to the fourth floor.

"I _said_ , I don't get how you've never been stuck in that step!" She doesn't mean for it come out as an accusation, but it does all the same.

"Easy. My mum and dad told me about it before I got here. They got up to all kinds of hijinks when they were here."

"Hmph."

He laughs quietly. "I know you're still mad I left you stuck in there fourth year. I said I was sorry!"

"Even now, you don't sound remotely sorry for that, Potter," Lily huffs, her mouth twisted into a frown. "It's been years, and yet somehow, you still seem to enjoy the fact that I was there for nearly an hour before Hestia found me."

"Okay, you're right," he admits. "It _was_ funny, though! You were so mad. I don't think you've ever yelled that much before or since."

"But _why?_ Why were you always messing with me? Why did you turn my scarf into a worm? Why did you put a boggart in our dormitory? Why did you laugh when my teapot grew legs and ran about the room in Transfiguration?"

" _Everyone_ laughed at you!" he points out. "It wasn't just _me_! Even Marlene gave you a hard time."

"I know, but you were _constantly_ pranking me, and it was…kind of bloody miserable, Potter. I never knew when my desk would explode or if my shoes would turn into ducks! Oh, don't look like that! I know you were behind that in third year," Lily snaps irritably when James's eyes widen innocently. "Even if I can't prove it."

He puts his hands in his trouser pockets, clearly uncomfortable with the trajectory of this conversation. "I was…"

"A complete knob."

"Yes. A total and utter prat."

"Yes."

"Bet your parents think I'm a right bully."

Lily's heart stills in her chest. Is it possible he doesn't know? She figures everyone had heard when it happened, but maybe he really didn't know.

"My parents—" She clears her throat. "My parents are dead, Potter."

He halts mid-stride, turning abruptly toward her. " _What?"_

"I thought everyone knew!" Lily says at his shocked expression. "It happened such a long time ago, and—"

His face is pale in the torchlight now, and she notices his hands are shaking. "No, what? Evans—no, I had no idea. I'm…so sorry. I didn't know about that when I brought them up, and—"

A thrum of grief courses through her, and she feels like she first felt in those early days after the sudden death of both of her parents. Embarrassed, yes, by the attention that it brought her, but also as if part of her had disappeared entirely, fallen inside the deep maw of pain that constantly threatened to envelop all of her.

"It's okay, Potter. I'm not mad. I just figured—Hestia—"

He shook his head, almost angrily now, but she knows he's not angry with her. "No, we didn't really—talk about you much. She didn't tell me _anything_. For fuck's sake, Evans, why didn't _you_ tell me?"

She glares at him. "When would I have had the chance, exactly? Was it after you released a boggart into my dormitory? Or right before you removed Severus's pants down by the lake?"

He flushes with embarrassment, his eyes cast downward as if the power of her glare was too much for him to manage in this moment. "It was…before those things happened then? Your parents."

Lily's heart suddenly speeds up again, and she's not sure that she can handle this conversation. Her eyes are burning, her stomach twisting anxiously, and in her mind's eyes, she can see her mother's smile as clear as if she were standing right in front of her. As if she were standing right where James Potter is standing right now, smiling at her with the flickering of the torch on her face.

Lily swallows. "Yeah. It was the summer before fifth year."

James groans, running a hand ruefully through his hair, and Lily knows why. Fifth year was when his attention to her had changed dramatically, going from playful prankster to an aggressively romantic pursuit. He had asked her out every opportunity he got, in more and more humiliating ways, until it had culminated in the day by the lake when he had tormented Severus for what felt like hours, filling and refilling his mouth with soap, hanging him upside down until Severus's face had turned red, until Lily had fled with the words, "Filthy Mudblood!" ringing in her ears.

"Evans." His voice is somber now, and Lily knows that this revelation has changed everything for him. He's chastened by the news that as he had moved to chase Lily with a relentlessness that would have impressed a niffler that had spotted treasure, Lily had just lost her parents. "I am _so_ sorry. I had…no idea. And I never asked. I don't know…anything about your family, and that's because I never thought to ask." He pauses, his eyes focused intently on her face. "I only thought about myself. I only _ever_ thought about myself."

"It's…" She pauses for a long moment. What did she want to say to him? _It's fine? It's okay?_ "It's not okay," she says finally, and he looks crestfallen, his eyes dropping with shame to the ground. "It's not okay," she repeats. "But I forgive you, Potter."

"You shouldn't," he says bitterly. "I don't deserve an ounce of it."

"No," she agrees. "You don't. But I'm giving it to you anyway."

His eyes widen, his shoulders rising from where they had been slumped, and he opens his mouth, his jaw hanging open like a gaping fish, and then he closes it abruptly, as if he was on the verge of saying too much. "Thank you," he says finally, and Lily can feel gratitude radiating off of him.

"You're welcome."

They stare at one another sheepishly for a moment, and then both release a nervous laugh, cutting the thick tension between them.

"I really am sorry," he says later on the fifth floor after they had resumed their patrol. "Not just because of your parents, you know. Because I was…a lot. All the time. And you had said no to me so many times, but I just thought if I kept asking, you'd give me a shot, you know?"

"I _already_ forgave you, Potter," Lily reminds him, peeking behind a tapestry where students are known to hide to snog after hours.

"I know, but I suppose I just want you to know that I, er, understand what I did was wrong. Even if it took me a little while to get there. I was an idiot."

"Well, you were right about one thing earlier," Lily says, a glint in her eye. "My parents did think you were a tremendous bully."

Even in the dark, Lily can see his cheeks redden, his posture shifting from mortification. "So I suppose you told them about the worm then."

"Oh yeah. Wrote them a whole long screed about it."

"What did they say?"

"Just told me to ignore you, that people like you want attention, and it drives you mad when you don't get it."

He pauses. "Evans, how—"

"Car crash," she replies, cutting him off before he can finish, not sure why she's discussing her parents more with him except that it feels good to remember them. It's been ages since she's talked about this with anyone. She spent much of fifth year talking to Hestia about her parents, crying on Hestia's shoulder, sobbing about how Petunia was completely lost to her by then.

James lets out a long breath that it feels like he's been holding since she first told him her parents were long gone. "And I thought flying was dangerous," he says.

Lily shrugs. "Cars are way more dangerous than broomsticks, I can assure you. Plus, Muggles don't have magic to save them."

"Were you…there?" His voice is low, so low that Lily very nearly misses his question. It takes her a moment to register exactly what he'd said, and another wave of grief washes over her.

"No. I was home with my sister and a…friend."

There is a long silence punctuated only by the small snuffles and sleep sounds of the paintings in the long corridor. Lily watches as an old wizard and witch in matching spangled robes and hats doze peacefully in armchairs, a low fire burning in the hearth beside them. Next to her, she feels James examining her face with care, and she can tell that for once, _she's_ surprised _him._ This makes her feel smug for reasons she can't explain.

"So your sister is—" He clears his throat. "She's a Muggle?"

Lily closes her eyes, somehow knowing that they'd reach this point of the conversation, and she knew she'd have to explain about Petunia.

She nods. "Yes. She finished school two years ago."

"You're close?"

She swallows hard against the lump forming in her throat. "We used to be."

His brow furrows. "Used to be?"

"It's complicated," Lily explains. "She's a difficult person sometimes."

"Difficult how?"

Lily shrugs now, moving away from the portrait of the witch and wizard and making her way to the staircase that would take them up to the sixth floor. James falls into step next to her, and when she doesn't speak, he says, "Evans, you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, but—I won't judge you. Or her. I promise."

A wild rush of affection for James floods her senses, and she knows that this is exactly what she meant when she wrote that he kept surprising her. He is so bloody _understanding_ about _everything_. He won't judge her for her failed relationship with her only living relative.

"Okay, but you can't tell anyone about this," Lily says, a note of pleading lacing her voice. "Not even your mates."

"Marauder's Honor!" He solemnly puts his right hand over his heart as they reach the sixth floor landing.

She takes a deep breath. "Petunia—my sister, that is—and I don't really speak anymore. She blamed me after our parents died—I was _supposed to be_ in the car with them that day, but I ended up staying back. She thinks I could have saved them. With magic."

"We can't—"

"—use magic outside of school, I know," Lily says, finishing his sentence. "She knows that, too. But even before they died, things were rocky with us."

"Hmm." James makes a noncommittal noise which Lily takes as him holding back his natural urge to push her to tell him more, reveal more of herself than she's shown anyone in years.

"She thinks me being a witch is…" She pauses, trying to find the words. "She thinks I'm a freak who goes to a freak school. She told all her friends I go to a school for criminal girls with behavior problems."

"What the fuck." James says, aghast. It's not really a question, more an exclamation of his disbelief that Lily's sister would even consider telling real people that her sister was a criminal.

"What the fuck indeed," Lily replies with a shrug. "And now her fiancé doesn't want me to come to their wedding so I'm not invited to that."

"What the _fuck_." He looks angry now.

She smiles. "I appreciate your indignation, Potter, but I'm over it. I'll stay here for the holidays and—"

He looks even more aghast than before. "You can't stay here for Christmas! That's mad!"

She tilts her head. "Well, I usually go to Marlene's for the holidays, but her parents are taking her to New York for Christmas—they have some business there—so I'll be here."

"Come to _my_ house, then!" he exclaims. "Mum and Dad love having company, and Sirius is already living there so they'll be delighted to have you."

Lily blinks at him owlishly. "Potter, I can't stay at your house over Christmas if you and Hestia get back together."

He runs a hand over his face impatiently, and Lily gets the sense that he's somehow saddened for her and frustrated by her all at the same time. "Okay, yeah, you're right. Why don't you just come by for dinner on Christmas Eve then? Mum really outdoes herself—there's at least ten different puddings."

"How would I get there?" She raises her eyebrow skeptically.

"You're Head Girl, are you telling me you can't apparate from Hogsmeade to Oxfordshire?"

"I don't think so, Potter," she says, feeling relieved that she is able to regain control of this situation. "I don't want your parents to get, er, confused."

"Fine," he replies, shrugging nonchalantly. "If staying here during Christmas suits you, no skin off my back." He stares moodily at his shoes as he says this. Lily watches him carefully, noting the color high in his cheeks as they pass another blazing torch. "I'm sure it'll be nice. You'll get lots of, er, _studying_ done."

"Wow, thanks a lot, Potter," Lily fumes. "What a condescending thing to say to someone who literally just spilled their guts to you. I suppose you consider it beneath you to stay at school during holidays, right? Mummy and Daddy want their little prince home to spoil him even more."

"Hey!" James exclaims. "You don't know fuckall about my family, Evans. Don't have a go at my parents." For the first time ever, he sounds really, truly _angry_. Lily wants to take a step away from him because she thinks he might actually hex her for her transgression, but she stays in step next to him as he wheels around to face her, almost losing his balance. "You can have a go at me. Just—don't talk about them." His breath comes in angry heaves, his hands yanking upward at his hair as is his habit, making it stand on end so it looks as if he's been on the end of a particularly nasty Electrocution Hex.

"Well, then don't have a go at me!" Lily hisses, pointing fiercely at him. "I didn't choose to not have any family at the ripe old age of seventeen, okay?"

But he doesn't back down from her, and when he speaks, it's the very last thing that Lily expects him to say. "They're dying, okay?! My parents are dying."

The breath leaves Lily's lungs; it's her turn to feel ashamed. A sharp pang shoots through her body, and she wants to reach out to James, to grasp his hand, to apologize to him for mocking him when he's in the midst of the greatest kind of pain Lily has ever known.

"I—Potter—"

"Yeah, so just—shut up," he says lamely, dropping his hands by his sides. They hang motionless, and Lily notices for the first time how lovely his hands are: the long, strong fingers, and a small scar on the back of his left hand.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'm so sorry, Potter. I didn't...think. I-"

"It's not okay," he says now, a small smile slanting across his face. "But I forgive you."

"No, no." Lily holds up her hand now to silence him. "I don't deserve it. I just gave you so much grief, but-" Her eyes meet his, locked into his gaze. "-I was wrong."

"I said I forgive you, Evans," James points out, and she smiles at the mirroring of her own words from moments earlier leaving his lips.

She drops her eyes, gesturing wordlessly down the corridor, and they resume their route in silence until-

"You don't have to tell me, Potter, but-"

"They got dragonpox two years ago, and it weakened them. They're already old so—" He shrugs, shoving his hands ferociously into his pockets. "And unlike you, I haven't got any siblings to fight with so when they're gone, it'll be just me, all alone in their house, and I—" He breaks off, as if he's said too much.

Lily clears her throat. "So you go home for Christmas because—"

"—because it could be my last one with them, yeah."

There's a mortified silence now as Lily looks up at him. He doesn't look near tears, which doesn't surprise Lily because he simply isn't someone who would cry when discussing something that was hurting him. Lily has learned at least this much about James Potter. Still, she feels horrid about what she said without knowing everything he'd just told her about his parents. Lily, of course, knew that the Potters were older than any of their classmates' parents, that James had been a blessing later in their lives, and that they adored their only boy. She'd listened to Hestia talk about James for years after all. Lily feels a surge of anger at Hestia for cheating on James, dumping him gracelessly when his entire world was crashing around him. But of course, this wasn't unusual for Hestia, was it? After all, how was what she did to James different than what she did to Lily? How was ditching your boyfriend while he's in the middle of losing his family all that different than ditching your friend while she's grieving? Lily thinks that Hestia has hurt both her and James, and she wants to say this to him, tell him that they should end this because Hestia is simply not worth it. That he should take this time to be with his parents. To say goodbye.

But she doesn't say this. Instead, she reaches out to pat him awkwardly on the arm. "For what it's worth, Potter," she croaks out, her voice hoarse. "I think I know a little bit of what you're feeling."

He looks down at her, his face an impenetrable mask, and then he puts his hand over hers. "Yeah," he replies, his voice equally as hoarse as hers. "Yeah, I think you just might."

"Sometimes I wonder what I might have said to my parents if I knew that I would never see them again," Lily says in a low voice.

"Yeah?" His voice is low, too, his hand still over hers. "What would you have said?"

"I would have said goodbye and told them I loved them one last time," she says simply, gently releasing her hand from his, pulling it back to pull her hair over her shoulder.

"Good advice," he replies. He cocks his head to one side now. "You know, Evans, it's nice to have someone to talk to about all this. To talk about real stuff."

"Well, you're a very good listener," Lily hears herself say rather than willingly speaking. She thinks her brain and her mouth might have temporarily detached.

"Thank you," he replies. "So are you."

"Thank you."

There's another long silence before James lets out a deep breath. "Hey, do you think we could call it a night?" He checks his watch. "We still have twenty more minutes left, but I'm beat. I was up late last night making sure everyone who signed up for Hogsmeade this weekend had a permission slip."

Lily raises her eyebrows as she inclines her head slightly, indicating that they could indeed head to bed. They begin to climb the stairs. "You did that last night?"

He shrugs. "Yeah, just wanted to be ready on Saturday, that's all," he says defensively. "Hey, you'll go with me, right?"

She looks taken aback. "I usually go with Mary and Marlene so—"

"McKinnon's going with me and the lads, and McDonald should come, too. Ask her, will you? Come on, Evans, Hestia and Snape are going to be there. They signed up! Plus, you have to hang back with me to make sure none of the firsties and second years try to sneak out."

She considers this. On one hand, she loves doing Hogsmeade weekend with just her friends. On the other hand, going to Hogsmeade together is something that almost every single Hogwarts couple does. It's almost a rite of passage, indicating that a couple is serious enough about their relationship that they're willing to show up together outside of school. It would send a loud and clear message to Severus: Lily was with James Potter, and it was a Very Serious Relationship.

"Come _on_ , Evans," he cajoles, and Lily relents.

"Fine," she says. "But no sharing drinks or anything like that, okay? And we stay with our friends."

"Deal," he agrees. "Doxy dung!"

They are at Gryffindor Tower now, the Fat Lady snoozing in her gilded frame. She doesn't wake when James gives her the password, and they both have to shout the password at her several times before she sleepily swings open, letting them climb into the portrait hole.

The common room is deserted, embers that used to be a fire smoldering in the hearth. James turns to face Lily, his eyes resting on her face.

"Thanks for letting us wrap up ear—" His eyes flick to somewhere over her shoulder, widening in apparent shock. " _Good God!"_

Lily whirls around on her heel just in time to see Marlene, completely naked from the waist up, squeal from where she was sitting directly atop Sirius.

"Oh my god!" Lily exclaims, turning away, but not before she got an eyeful of Sirius Black's bare chest covered in dark hair. " _Marlene!"_

"In the _common room?_ " James exclaims, turning away similarly so as not to humiliate their friends even further.

"What are you doing back early?!" Sirius's voice says incredulously. "You're supposed to patrol until midnight!"

"We ended early!" Lily hisses.

"Sorry, Lil!" Marlene's voice floats toward Lily now, who is determinedly avoiding looking at James. "We weren't expecting you for another twenty minutes."

There's rustling behind them and then Lily feels Marlene's hand on her shoulder. Marlene's pajama top is back on, and to Lily's great relief, Sirius is wearing a thin t-shirt over his pajama bottoms. They both look flushed, their lips swollen, and Marlene has a manic look in her eye that Lily's never seen on her friend's face before.

"You _cannot_ seriously be snogging in the bloody common room!" James's voice is low, but Lily can sense that he wants to explode at Sirius. "You couldn't have found a nice empty classroom like a normal couple? Charms corridor too good for you now?

Sirius grins, and it makes him look even more handsome. "Couldn't risk you catching us," he says.

"Well, look how well that worked out!" James hisses, but he's not angry. His eyes are filled with mirth. "Now I've seen McKinnon's tits, and poor Evans had to see you practically naked."

"My back was turned, Potter!" Marlene cries. "You didn't see anything!"

"And Evans didn't see anything she won't see on the class trip!" Sirius says, winking at Lily. Lily tries not to look puzzled at this, making a mental note to ask Marlene what Sirius could mean.

"For Merlin's sake, _anyone_ could have come down here!" Lily lectures, glaring at both of their sheepish faces. "McGonagall! Imagine getting caught by her! You're lucky it's just us!"

"Some poor first year could have wandered in, and you'd have ruined their innocence," James says, taking Lily's thread and running with it easily, as if he's inside her head.

"Look, just because _you_ don't get caught—" Marlene begins heatedly, but Sirius holds up a hand to her, and she falls quiet. He leans in to mutter something in her ear. She nods as he places a careless kiss near her ear. "Fine," she says to him, and Lily wonders what he said to her because Marlene is not one to back down so easily.

"Mar, let's go up," Lily suggests because Marlene is shooting looks of deepest loathing at James now. Marlene begrudgingly allows Lily to steer her up the stairs, and as Lily brushes her teeth, she can hear Marlene muttering from behind the curtains of her four-poster. She hears the word "tosser" uttered more than once, and Lily is reminded of how drastically things have changed in the last few weeks that Marlene is calling James Potter a tosser and Lily thinks that he might be the furthest thing from a tosser she could have imagined.

* * *

_Do you think Dumbledore made me Head Girl and you Head Boy because he knew that we could help each other? Every time I'm in some sort of trouble, you're always there to help me out of it. And maybe, just maybe, he knew that I know what it's like to lose one's parents, that I could be there for you in a way that no one else in your life can._

_What I wanted to tell you when you told me about your parents is: it will never stop hurting. When they're gone, you'll wonder what to do with all the love you still feel for them. When you go home for the holidays, you'll wonder how to be. And then small things will happen that will remind you of all the time you got._

_For me, it's such tiny things that I couldn't name them all, but sometimes I'll catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I'll see my mum. Everyone told me I got her eyes, but I never saw it until after she was gone. Now, I see her whenever I see my own eyes-not just the green color, but the shape and the eyelashes and the eyebrows. It's weird to think that she gave me her eyes, but I think some part of her wanted one of us to get her own mother's distinct eyes. I never knew my grandmother, and sometimes I think that my own children will never know my own mother except through my eyes. Maybe they'll get her eyes, too._

_I write like my dad, though. The shapes of the letters are the same—the loop of the e's and the way he dotted his i's and j's. I can write with both hands like him, too—he was odd like that, which is why I think he_ _**loved** _ _it when I got my Hogwarts letter. He finally felt vindicated like it was_ _**him** _ _going to a secret school for magic. He worked at a factory during the day, but his real passion was, like me, reading and writing. He read everything he could get his hands on, and wrote one-act plays that Petunia and I used to act out until he and mum would cry with laughter._

_What I wanted to tell you was: notice these things before they're gone. Take photos of them. Keep every single thing they write. Write them often, every day if you can, and spend every moment you can with them. Say everything you ever wanted to say to them—even the bad things. Especially the bad things. Let them say sorry to you, and you say sorry to them. These are the things I wish I'd had the chance to do before my parents died, and I wish I had told you these things._

_Maybe one day I will._

* * *

The day of the Hogsmeade trip dawned bright and crisp, a perfect fall day. The ground was coated with a fresh carpet of fallen leaves, leaving the barren branches waving in the chilly air. At breakfast, the Marauders join Lily and her friends for breakfast, Mary more than happy to join them for the visit to the village.

"Shame we have to take the usual way to Hogsmeade," Sirius comments lightly, sipping his coffee.

Marlene raises an eyebrow. "As opposed to…?"

Sirius reddens slightly as James, Remus, and Peter glare at him. "Er, nothing," he says quickly, choking on his coffee and coughing slightly. "Just we know a short—"

" _Padfoot."_ Remus's voice cuts Sirius off smoothly. "Stop."

"It's not a secret, you know," Lily informs the group, a mischievous grin on her face. "He's already told me there's a shortcut."

"Oh, _has_ he?" It's Sirius's turn to glare, and his gaze could freeze the entirety of the Black Lake.

James chokes, and Remus has to pat his back to dislodge the piece of bacon that's stuck in his throat. "She guessed!" he wheezes. "I didn't tell her!"

Sirius's eyes flick to Lily now, his eyes narrowed. "Pretty lucky guess, I'd say."

"Oh, _puh-lease_!" Mary cuts in now. " _Everyone_ knows all of you sneak out all the time. How does the entire school get firewhiskey and butterbeer whenever there's a reason to have a party?"

James blushes deeply now, and Lily knows without a doubt that James and his mates have indeed been supplying the school with alcohol whenever possible. She raises her eyebrows at him. He reddens even further under her gaze, slouching down in his seat as everyone watches him amusedly.

"That was _you?"_ Marlene asks, her jaw dropping slightly. "You gave those third years alcohol during exams last year?"

"Not me, Lily," Remus says suddenly, looking at Lily with a seriousness in his eyes that makes Lily want to hug him. "I promise. I had no idea until after those two girls went to the Hospital Wing."

"Well, we weren't going to tell _you_ , little prefect!" Sirius ribs Remus, but Remus's eyes don't leave Lily's face, as if asking her a question.

"It's okay, Remus," Lily says with a smile she hopes is reassuring. "I know you have very little to do with their shenanigans. It's why Dumbledore made you prefect, I suppose."

"Explain why Prongs is Head Boy, then." Sirius crosses his arms over his chest, challenging Lily, who shrugs one shoulder.

"Even Dumbledore can make mistakes," she jokes, looking away from him as her cheeks redden remembering what she'd written not even a week ago about this very subject. _He wanted to offer you the generosity that you offer everyone else._

Sirius lets out a low whistle just as Professor McGonagall is striding over to James and Lily. She looks disapprovingly at Sirius's whistle and his Muggle attire—a leather jacket and ripped jeans—and then fixes her gaze on both James and Lily. "It's time for you two to start checking names," she tells him in a lecturing sort of tone. "And it's your responsibility, along with Mr. Filch, to ensure no first or second years end up in the village. If you see one of them there, bring them straight back to the castle, alright?"

"Yes, Professor," Lily replies, brushing a crumb off her jumper and rising from her seat at the house table. Professor McGonagall's lips purse in disapproval at Lily's own Muggle attire, a soft black jumper and jeans. Lily ignores this, scooping up the clipboards that held students' names and handing one to James, who follows her dutifully out of the Great Hall, snagging another piece of toast before he goes.

The process is simple enough, thanks to James's surprising organizational ingenuity. He had already separated the lists alphabetically so all Lily has to do is cross off students' names, not needing to cross reference a different parchment to see if they had a permission slip because James had included small notes near every students' name. Lily marvels at his orderliness, never suspecting that someone with such untidy hair would have the organizational abilities of her own high-strung sister.

"So, not bad for our first Hogsmeade weekend, eh, Head Girl?" James crows as they cross the wide lawn that leads down to the gates. Lily smiles lightly.

"You did do a very good job," she admits. "Well done."

"You're _complimenting_ me?!" He gasps, clutching his hand at his heart in jest.

"Ugh, don't get used to it, Potter!" she says in a low voice, rolling her eyes at him, but she's smiling despite everything. "So, what do you and your mates usually get up to in the village?"

"Well, er, about that—" He looks down abashedly. "I thought we could go to Madam Puddifoot's because Hestia'll be there with her new bloke, and it'll drive her mad if she sees me there with you."

Lily's heart sinks at his words. His simple request to stick to the parameters of their agreement—go where Hestia will be and be visible—seems to flow like a particularly lethal poison through her blood, turning her veins to ice as she takes him in—his dark eyes behind the glasses, his slightly crooked nose, the slant of his smile, and those damn dimples. Her eyes must slide out of focus for a moment because he looks at her curiously.

"Evans?"

His voice breaks through her dread at being used to inspire jealousy in Hestia. "Yes?"

"Puddifoot's? Is it alright if we go?"

"Er—sure. Will we have time to see Mary and Marlene after?" She speaks optimistically, earnestly hoping that Potter didn't want to do their act for the whole afternoon just for Hestia.

"Oh! Of course! Yes!" He smiles. "The lads would have my head if I left them for you for an entire Hogsmeade visit."

She tilts her head now, looking at him as he takes long strides next to her, his cheeks pink with cold. "So how do you get the alcohol into the school?"

He laughs, a loud sound like the clang of a bell. "You really hang on to every single thing, don't you?"

"I'm Head Girl," she says casually, shrugging. "I need to know these things."

He glances sideways at her. "Evans, you know Sirius would hang me upside down from those chains in Filch's office if I told you how we did even half of the things we did."

"He doesn't like me, does he?" Lily's surprised at her own question, her ease with which she just let go of what Potter had just said, the thought of he and his mates slipping third year students alcohol like a ripple on the Black Lake: there one minute, and then gone the next.

"Who, Sirius?" James's voice is gentle, low, and Lily feels the care with which he says Sirius's name.

"Yeah."

He frowns for a moment, his eyes fixed on the village ahead which had appeared suddenly, as if _it_ had Apparated to _them._ He's thinking about her question, and Lily finds herself touched by the attention with which he ruminates on this. He's thinking about Sirius, of course, but he also doesn't want to hurt her feelings.

"He's…protective of me," James finally replies. "And I, him. He's like my brother, you know. It's hard to explain, but he's the best person I know. Even if he is a bit of a bastard at times."

"Do you want to tell him, then?" She gestures widely at herself. "That this is all fake?" The words send another chill through her veins.

He shrugs. "Nah. He can't keep a secret to save his life. He just—he'd tell everyone." At these words, James looks embarrassed for a fleeting second before his face is back to normal. "He doesn't _dislike_ you. He just needs—"

"Time." Lily finishes his sentence for him.

He looks pleasantly surprised at her, his eyes crinkling. "Yeah. Time. To get used to you."

"So—"

"Wait, Evans, one sec," James says, halting mid stride to turn to her. He gives her a once over, and she feels her face grow hot as his eyes rake over her face and body. Then, he reaches into the pocket of his coat and pulls something out in his clamped fist. "Here."

He drops it unceremoniously into her outstretched hand, and she sees that it's a fine gold chain. On it hangs a sparkling pendant—an emerald surrounded by diamonds. It's beauty takes Lily's breath away, and she looks from it to James. He's looking at her expectantly. "Er—do you want me to wear this?"

He releases an exasperated sigh. "No, Evans, just wanted your opinion on it. Well? What do you think?" He rolls his eyes. "Of course I want you to wear it!"

"It's Hestia's, though," she says carefully. "I can't wear her necklace."

"It's not," he says, and when Lily raises her eyebrows skeptically, he says, "I _swear_ , it's not! But when she sees it, she'll know I gave it to you."

"How will she knows?"

"Because it's my mum's."

"Wha—Potter! I can't wear this!" She tries to hand the necklace back to him, but he stubbornly shoves his hands in his coat pockets. "It looks expensive! What if I lose it?"

"You better not," he says darkly, but there's a gleam in his eyes. "My mum loves that necklace."

"Well, why'd she give it to you then?" Lily's eyes are wide. It's her turn to look at _him_ expectantly.

"She—well, she wants me to give it to someone…special." He turns a brilliant shade of red, ducking his head so Lily can't see him, but it's too late; she's already seen him, and with a laugh and a shrug, she unclasps the chain, holding it out to him.

"Well, if you insist." She stares at him as he stares back. "Well? Are you going to help me put it on or…?"

"What? Oh, yeah. Sure." He takes the unclasped chain from her, and she turns, twisting her wild curls in her hand to expose the nape of her neck to him. He reaches across her face for the briefest moment, and Lily thinks she sees a miniscule tremble in his fingers. But then he smoothly re-clasps the chain behind her neck, his fingers brushing her nape every so slightly and sending a warm shudder down her spine.

She slips the necklace into her coat so it sits heavy against her sternum, resting between the wool of her jumper and the silk lining of her coat. It feels odd to be wearing Mrs. Potter's necklace meant for "someone special." Was James saving it for Hestia? Had he planned on giving it to her?

"My dad gave that to my mum when they were in school," James explains, all hints of his former mortification gone as he strides onto Hogsmeade's High Street, the shops bustling with students. Lily sighs with contentment, her eyes flitting from Scrivenshaft's to Honeyduke's, each shop overflowing with Hogwarts pupils ready to spend their gold on quills and parchments, Cockroach Clusters and Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. She spies Alison Lee going into the Three Broomsticks with two other Ravenclaw girls, and she looks longingly in her direction.

"Oh, no, Evans," James says teasingly, slinging an arm around her shoulders and giving her a squeeze. "We're going to the most romantic place imaginable."

She looks up at him, and a strange swooping sensation hits low in her stomach. "I'm not sure I can—"

"We'll just have a bit of tea and leave, alright? No need to snog me this time." He winks at her now. "Now will you please put your arm around me? You look a bit odd with your arms just stuck to your sides like that."

She hopes he doesn't see her tremble as she takes her left arm and loops it around his waist, inadvertently pulling him closer, so close that she smells spearmint and oranges again.

"Much better," he says a tad too gleefully, steering her toward a little side street that she's never noticed before.

As they approach the front of Madam Puddifoot's, Lily gasps. "This—cannot be it. No way, Potter. I can't go in there. I can't go in there. With _you."_ But James is pretending not to hear her, a smile plastered to his face as he pulls open the shop door. A bell tinkles to alert everyone to their presence. Two dozen pairs of eyes turn in their direction, but Lily doesn't see them. She's looking around the little tea shop, her eyes wide.

The garish shop front simply cannot compete with the absolutely gaudy interior. The walls are lined with ugly china plates, which are covered in kitschy patterns that remind Lily of the hideous china at Petunia's fiancé's sister's house. The tables are made only for two, and are currently occupied by students. She notices with a queasy feeling that each pair of students is a couple she recognizes from school, and also that they're all staring at her and James as he leads her to an empty table against the back wall. Her eyes scan the students who have by now resumed their attentions to their dates.

"She's not here!" Lily hisses as she takes a seat across from James, who is similarly looking around the cramped shop. Hestia's long sheet of shiny, dark hair is nowhere to be found.

"Let's wait—she might show up and—"

"I thought the whole idea was to have her see us come in?" Lily fingers the ugly lace doily on the table with disgust.

"Well now she can see us leave," James says absently as he finishes his examination of their fellow guests at Madam Puddifoot's. His eyes refocus on Lily's face. He frowns. "Hey, can you at least look like you're having fun?"

She smiles hugely, and he grins right back at her. "Much better," he chuckles, reaching across the table to take her hand in his. She lets him do this, looking across the space between them, so insignificant, not even the breadth of a single footstep, and yet, it feels cavernous as their eyes meet. James doesn't look away. It doesn't feel like a dare or an act. Lily's pulse ticks up. Can he feel the _thud thud thud_ of her heartbeat through her hand? She wants to slide her hand from his, sit on both her palms so she doesn't act on the wild urge to reach across and push his hair from his eyes. For a moment, she thinks she sees his pupils dilate, and then he's tearing his eyes away as the bell tinkles again.

It's not Hestia, however. He doesn't hide the bitter disappointment on his face, instead saying absently, "Do you want a drink?"

"Sure," she replies, ducking her head for a moment to hide her own disappointed face.

"Tea?"

She makes a face. "I don't like tea."

"How are you British?" James teases. "A solid English woman always has a cuppa between lunch and dinner."

Lily twists her mouth in distaste. "Not this English woman. But I will have hot cocoa if they have it."

He smiles at her, and _why_ does her pulse start to race when he does that? "You got it, Lils." Before she can protest at him calling her Lils, however, he's up and making his way toward the counter where a smiling witch greets him warmly.

With a start, she realizes it's positively stifling in the little shop, and she shrugs off her coat, hanging it carefully on the back of the chair behind her. With a small sigh, she looks around the shop again. Sirius's little brother is sitting with a beautiful girl that Lily doesn't know, looking haughtily at her while she gazes at him in admiration. Not wanting to be caught staring at Regulus Black in Madam Puddifoot's, Lily lets her gaze wander, letting her eyes rest on the back of Hufflepuff prefect Elliott Griffin's head, whose long braids hang down the back of her chair as she leans forward toward her date who is laughing at some wonderfully funny thing that Elliott has just said. Lily watches them for a moment, Elliott putting her hand on the other girl's knee, the two of them exchanging shy, knowing glances, their faces flushed with the knowledge that they liked one another. Lily wonders how different her life would have turned out if she'd allowed herself these small pleasures earlier. Setting her hand on someone's knee in public, letting others know how she felt about them, giving someone her attention and affection freely and letting everyone see and not even caring if everyone saw. Would she not be in a phony relationship with James Potter? Would she instead—and her stomach squirms nervously at this—be his actual girlfriend? Would Hestia still be her best friend?

"Here you are!" James announces, setting down a tray with two steaming mugs and a plate of biscuits. "Hot chocolate and biscuits." As he resumes his seat, his eyes flick to the emerald that glitters around Lily's neck. "It looks nice on you," he comments. "Matches your eyes."

She tears her attention from Elliott back to James. "Thanks," she says, picking up her mug and blowing on the surface of her drink. She takes a small sip, and it's much too hot. With a wince, she sets the mug down, cupping her hands around it to warm her fingers. "So…how'd you know Hestia would be here?"

"Hmm?" James is looking toward the door again, and Lily rolls her eyes.

"Potter, if you're going to insist that I look like I'm enjoying myself, you can at least return the favor. You look positively _glum_."

He turns his attention back to her, picking up his own mug and taking a scalding sip. "Sorry, Evans," he says, sputtering and stuffing a whole biscuit in his mouth. "Ijusfoutshebeehear."

"Pardon?"

He swallows, clearing his throat. "I just thought she'd be here." He looks down into his mug, then back up. "Because we'd come here sometimes. And this way, she can see _him_ since he can't very well come to the school, you know."

"Do you really want that?" Lily asks quietly. "To see her with him?"

He shrugs. "It's more about her seeing me here with you."

"Have you even talked to her since you broke up?" Lily isn't sure why she's asking these questions, only that her morbid curiosity wins out over her rational mind, which is screaming at her to run out of Madam Puddifoot's all the way back to the castle.

He nods. "A bit. She wanted to stay friends, she said."

"Did you consider that maybe this whole thing isn't actually making her jealous and it's actually doing what we're trying to do with Severus?" Lily herself hadn't considered this until she said it out loud, the words hanging between herself and James like an ugly stain that no one wants to look at.

He tilts his head, considering her thoughtfully. After a moment, he shakes his head. "No. I guess I didn't consider that." A pause. "Did you consider that this might be making Snape jealous?"

"The other night in the dungeon, he told me it 'wasn't working' to make him jealous," Lily says.

James laughs. "That means it's definitely driving him batty, the prat!"

"Then why would he tell me that?"

James shakes his head amusedly, taking another sip of his hot cocoa. "I can't speak to what's going on in Sniv—oops, sorry, force of habit!—Snape's head, but it seems like he's not trying to convince you when he said that to you. He's trying to convince himself it's not sending him completely up the wall."

Lily looks alarmed. "But that's not what I want!"

"Well, we may have to try a different strategy, then…for both our sakes." James peers into his mug, lost in thought.

"Maybe we should have a fight?" Lily suggests. "A big, public fight so that Hestia sees that we're on the rocks, and so Severus sees that I'm a terrible girlfriend."

"You know—" James muses over this. "—that's not a half bad plan." He looks into her eyes again. "What should we fight about?"

"Oh, that should be easy enough to figure out since I've spent six full years yelling at you, Potter." She starts ticking off things that annoy her on her fingers, a small smile on her face. "How about your immaturity? Or how you strut about the school looking down on everyone? Or maybe how you copy all my good Potions techniques and pass them off as your own to Slughorn? Or how you got those poor third years drunk last term? Or—"

"Okay, okay, I get it!" James says, holding up both his hands. "I get it, I have a lot of faults. You don't have to tell me any more, Evans. You've already yelled at me about all those things."

"We could fight about how you give me all the Head duties," Lily suggests

"I literally did all the work for this Hogsmeade visit, Evans," he points out.

"It's supposed to be a _fake_ fight," Lily says plainly, sipping her cocoa now that it's cooled down enough. "You can just pretend you've gone back to your old ways, I suppose? Hestia would like that, right?"

There's something strange in his eyes now, and he shrugs. "Sure. When would you like to have this fight?"

"Next week at the prefect meeting?"

"Hestia won't be there."

"Oh yeah…" Lily thinks forward a few weeks, and then her eyes alight. "What about _at Stonehenge?"_

His eyes brighten, too. "Oh, Evans, you're bloody brilliant! Hess will see it and so will Snape—"

"—and you'll be able to get back together with her on the trip!" Lily says, trying to feign excitement at this plan. "And I'll _really_ lay into you to just show Severus how truly unpleasant I am."

"This is a genius idea!" James says. "I'm so lucky to have a smarty pants fake girlfriend."

Lily does a small mock bow. "Why, thank you, Potter!" She holds up her cocoa mug, and James clinks his own mug to hers, draining his drink in one large gulp.

"Hey, Evans," he says, setting his mug down with a heavy _thunk_ and wiping a chocolate mustache from his face. "You wanna get out of this place?"

"Hestia's not here yet!" Lily says.

He shrugs. "If she's not here yet, it might mean she's somewhere else in the village."

"Three Broomsticks?" Lily suggests, remembering Hestia's fondness for butterbeer, and he nods.

"Let's give it a shot."

They rise in synchronicity, and before Lily can reach for her coat, James has already crossed the small space between them and is helping her slide her arms into the sleeves. She buttons her coat as a few heads turn. Lily sees Elliott and her date watching them, and she gives Elliott a little wave that the young girl returns with a wink. James ushers Lily forward, playfully pulling one of her curls as they weave through the tables, James greeting some students that he knows on the way out.

They open the door to the shop, the bell tinkles, but Lily hears someone from inside Madam Puddifoot's distinctly say, "Good for Potter, eh?" Lily feels a flush creeping up her chest, and swallows hard, willing it to not make its way up to her face.

When they reach the Three Broomsticks, however, they find neither Hestia nor Severus.

"I don't see Mary or Marlene here!" Lily yells over the din of the crowded pub into James's ear, him leaning down to hear her better.

"Do you want to stay?" His warm minty and chocolaty breath near her ear makes her shiver slightly.

"There's nowhere to sit!" Lily laments, gesturing around. Indeed, every single table was occupied, and there was only one open stool at the bar, where the beautiful Rosemerta poured mead from a tap for an ornery wizard seated across from her.

James looks around the Three Broomsticks similarly, trying to spot an empty table. When he can't, he leans back down to Lily's ear. "Evans, are you up for an adventure?"

And for some inexplicable reason, Lily nods.

He seizes her hand, interlacing his fingers through hers so their palms are pressed together, and pulls her back out onto the brisk and bustling High Street. "Where are we going?" Lily asks breathlessly trying to keep up with his long strides.

"If I tell you, you'll have the chance to say no," James explains. "It's better to wait and see."

As the shops and houses start to thin out, Lily realizes that he's taking her to the outskirts of town and there's nothing there except…

"The Shrieking Shack?" She stops abruptly, pulling James back by the hand. He stumbles, righting himself almost instantly, and looks down at her with amusement in his eyes.

"Come on, Evans, you're not scared, are you?"

"It's _haunted!"_ Lily says tersely. "The whole village avoids it."

"Evans, you live in a haunted castle with about a hundred ghosts and a demented poltergeist." He looks pointedly at her.

"Okay, point taken, but someone once told me they saw a werewolf on the property and—"

"I promise there's not a bloody werewolf in there!" He laughs at this, and his laugh puts Lily at ease. He wouldn't put her in danger. He's _James Potter_. He might be a troublemaker, but he'd never intentionally harm anyone. _Except Severus,_ Lily thinks darkly.

She looks skeptically at him and then down the lane where she can see the roofline of the Shack. "Fine," she relents. "But if something weird happens then…" She trails off.

" _Nothing_ will happen, I promise," he says, gesturing down the lane. "Come on."

She follows him, watching at the Shrieking Shack comes into view. The house itself isn't that intimidating—it looks just like a small house that's fallen into deep disrepair. The chimney is crooked and appears to be sinking into the roof. The outside is shabby looking, with the front windows boarded up and a cracked, overgrown sidewalk leading to the boarded up front door. There are bricks missing, and the whole house seems to be slowly becoming part of the Scottish countryside. The metal gate connected to the rusty fence around the garden gives a deafening creak as James opens it, letting Lily in before following her.

An icy gust of wind suddenly blasts through, and the creaky gate slams shut. Something skitters across Lily's path, and she screams, jumping backwards and colliding with James, whose arms instantly reach around her to keep her from falling.

"Alright, Evans?" He's looking down at her now, and everything about him snaps into sudden focus for her. His face is so close to hers, so, so close that if she just stood on tiptoe, her lips would meet his easily, and his hands are at her waist, steadying her. His eyes are smiling, always smiling at her. For one searing second, the thought crosses her mind that she could stand this way with James Potter forever, smelling his distinct boyish smell and looking into his smiling eyes with his warm hands holding her.

She takes a giant step backward now, adding space between them, and for the tiniest moment, a fraction of a fraction of a second, she thinks she sees disappointment behind Potter's smiling eyes, but when she looks at him again, his eyes are on the Shack, surveying the front of it. With a determined look on his face, he crosses the yard, grasping at a wood plank on a first floor window. He yanks at it, hard, and with an almighty wrench, it dislodges from the window.

"Wh—what are you doing?" Lily stammers.

"Trying to get inside, of course," he replies, tugging another plank from the window to reveal a filthy window.

"Inside?!" She hates how scared she sounds, but it cannot be helped. It's not called the _Shrieking_ Shack for no reason. "We can't go in there!"

"Why not?" His eyes have a glimmer of that old James Potter mischief that she recognizes instantly.

"It's—" She's suddenly at a loss for words.

"Haunted?" James suggests, pulling the last plank off the first floor window, and sliding open the dirty window easily. He sticks his head inside the window, and when he comes back out, he says, "It doesn't look very haunted to me."

"Let me see," Lily says, hip checking him to the side as she peers inside the shack. In the room inside, a massive old grand piano sits idly in the corner. A thick coat of dust covers everything: the formerly gleaming mantle, the carpet that looks like it used to be ivory but is now an unrecognizable color, the wallpaper, the torn up sofa, and a chair missing all its legs. She doesn't see any evidence that anyone else has been in here for years.

She emerges from the window, and looks at James. "It looks filthy in there."

He ignores her, ducking and swinging one of his long legs into the open window so he's straddling the sill. Then, as easily and gracefully as a cat, he pulls his other leg in, and a second later, he's holding out his hand to Lily. "Step on that ledge," he commands, pointing to a stone lip at the base of the house. "And then put your knee here." He pats the windowsill. Lily does as instructed, grasping James's hand with her left hand. She looks up, and her eyes meet his. She doesn't miss it this time. His pupils _do_ dilate ever so slightly. He clears his throat, saying, "Now bring your other leg in." She does so, and with another smooth movement, he wraps his arm around her waist and pulls her inside, his hands steadying her once more as she blinks and looks around.

"It's a parlor," she whispers in amazement now, approaching the piano and pushing down one of the white keys. It lets out discordant notes, and behind her, she hears James's low chuckle.

"You're not afraid of waking the ghosts?" His voice is filled with amusement, and Lily rolls her eyes as she turns around to face him.

"Tell me the truth, Potter." She puts her hands on her hips, trying to channel Professor McGonagall's stern manner. "Have you been in this house before?"

He ducks his head, running a hand through his untidy hair. "Guilty."

She lets out a puff of air. "Have you shagged Hestia in here?"

His eyes widened. "What? No! Look around. This isn't exactly the kind of place you bring a girl you want to shag."

Lily feels a small twinge in her chest, but ignores it, choosing to surge forward with her line of questioning. "How many times have you been here?"

At this, his eyes drop to the grimy carpet, and he shrugs. "I dunno."

"Pfft!"

"Did you just say _pfft?_ "

She ignores him, looking around the dingy room, and then turns back to him. "Well, aren't you going to give me a tour?"

"Wha—oh! Yes! Of course. Pardon my manners, Evans!"

"You are pardoned," Lily says, her eyes crinkling with amusement.

"This is the parlor and—" He gestures toward a doorway with a door hanging by only one hinge. "Through there is a lovely corridor with a marvelous collection of paintings."

He leads her through every room of the Shrieking Shack, keeping up a running commentary of the history of each painting, fabricating family members, and making Lily laugh more than she was initially willing to laugh in his presence. She felt completely at ease here with him, and she wonders if she'd feel this way if he had been another bloke. Severus, for example. Would Severus make her feel at ease here? In the back of her mind, she knows the answer: no. With his new friends and his new interests, Lily would never feel at ease around Severus again.

This knowledge lodges itself into a recess of her brain that she's not even sure she can reach even if she tries to write it down. There's something so unspoken about this feeling—that she can't trust her oldest friend in the world, that he would harm her—and she's not sure how she'd even put it into words.

As James tries to lead them out, Lily pauses at the bottom of the stairs, frowning at a door through which he had not taken her. "What's that room?" She points at the door, stepping across James and making a beeline for it, her hand reaching for the knob before James intercepts smoothly.

"Lily, don't—," he says, putting a gentle hand on hers to stop her turning the knob, but it's too late. The door swings open, and Lily gasps.

In the center of the room is a bed—but it's barely recognizable. The hangings, sheets, and mattress have been torn to shreds and scattered about the floor. One of the wooden posts has been pulled from the rest of the bed, and there are deep, jagged bite marks across the entire post, bite marks so deep and so savage that the wood has splintered.

Her eyes travel across the walls, where the old floral wallpaper curls away from long, curving gashes. Every surface is covered in deep, slicing gouges, and Lily raises a hand to cover her mouth, silent as she observes the carnage in the room. A massive wardrobe hangs open in the corner, and Lily spots more deep lacerations inside, as if an animal had been trapped within and was screaming to get out. Was that the shrieking the villagers had heard? The other thing that Lily noticed was that this room was not nearly as dusty, as untouched as the others. Whatever or _whoever_ had done this, they had done it recently.

"Ghosts?" She doesn't realize she says this, but the word spills out of her mouth before she can control herself.

"It's not ghosts," James says quietly behind her.

"What—?" She doesn't finish, her eyes meeting his. He looks sorrowful, as if he feels guilty that Lily had to see this, as if he wanted to protect her from this…and this from her.

"Let's go," he says gently, his hand cupping her elbow. "I can tell you. If you want."

She looks at him carefully now, and she gets the distinct feeling that if she asked him what happened in this room, he'd tell her. He'd tell her everything and anything she wanted to know, but it would bring him misery and pain. And while at one time, Lily might have relished giving James Potter something to be miserable about, she can't find it in her now to do that to him. Instead, she says, "No. But do you know where I can get a drink?"

This is how they end up at the Hog's Head, an establishment that Lily has only heard about through rumor and conjecture. She has never once set foot into this pub, favoring the Three Broomsticks, but James opens the door for her, and as she crosses the threshold, the pungent scent of animals hits her nose like an oncoming train.

"Merlin," she says, wrinkling her nose in distaste. "What is that?"

"Goats," James replies matter-of-factly, sliding onto a stool at the bar, and patting the empty stool next to him invitingly. Lily hops on, propping her elbows onto the bar and peering at the barman, who's wearing austere robes that match his long, gray beard. He has electric blue eyes that seem somehow familiar to Lily but she can't place them.

"Back again, Potter?" the barman says, approaching them. "And with a girl, no less. Where are those mates of yours?"

"I was hoping you'd tell me, Ab," James replies, a warm smile spreading across his face. "Have they been here today?"

The barman shakes his head, setting two pint glasses filled to the brim with a gold liquid in front of James and Lily. "Nah, haven't seen them here today," he says, starting to polish pint glasses with a surprisingly clean towel. From behind the bar, Lily hears a tiny bleat, and looks, astonished, at James. She mouths _Goats!_ at him, and he laughs. The barman frowns. "You never seen a goat, girlie?" He addresses Lily gruffly, his blue eyes piercing through her in such a way that she feels like he can see directly into her mind.

"No, I, er—" Lily stutters incomprehensibly. "Sorry, sir, I just—"

"What my charming friend here means to say, Ab, is, Yes, she'd love to see a goat. Do you have a baby one around here?"

"This little gal—" Ab the barman drops down for a moment, and re-emerges holding a tiny baby goat in his arm.

"Oh my God!" Lily squeals loudly, and hears a rumble of discontent from the bar's other patrons, who are clearly accustomed to silence in their drinking haunt of choice. The tiny goat looks at Lily, and she can feel her heart start to melt. _I love goats,_ she thinks as James stands on the rung of his stool, reaches across the bar to capture the white, brown, and black kid from the barman, and sits back down, cradling the small animal, who is letting out small contented bleats as it nuzzles James's chin affectionately. Looking at him holding a small, defenseless animal, Lily's heart is a puddle, and her brain is a mess.

"What's her name?" Lily asks the barman, tearing her eyes away from James to look at him.

"Lucifer."

James guffaws, looking down at Lucifer in his arms. "She doesn't look like a Lucifer, Ab. She looks more like a—" He looks up at Lily, who can't help but gaze adoringly at the sweet creature James is holding.

"Buttercup," Lily says almost immediately, the name popping into her head without a single thought.

Ab muses on this, and then nods. "Fine. Henceforth, Lucifer shall be Buttercup."

"Do you want to pet her?" James asks Lily, and Lily's breath hitches in her throat.

"Can I?"

"Better yet, do you want to hold her?"

Lily nods, already reaching for Buttercup, pulling her into her own chest, and making small noises at her as Buttercup bleats affectionately, nuzzling Lily much the same way she had done to James. "She's so cute," Lily sighs, gazing down at Buttercup.

"Trust you to pick a flower name, Evans," James teases, taking a sip of his drink.

"What is it?" Lily asks, indicating the liquid in the pint glasses.

"Just ale. Ab brews it himself behind the pub."

Lily takes one hand from where she's petting Buttercup gently, and lifts her pint glass to her lips. She's never had ale, though her mother and father enjoyed a pint every now and then. She takes a sip, considering the taste. It's thick and malty, slightly bitter, but has a slightly woody taste that she likes. "It's not bad," she says to James. "So you lot are here often, eh? Considering you know the barman by name?"

James shrugs. "It's a quiet place where no one bothers you," he says, turning on his stool now to put his feet on the rungs of Lily's stool. He's facing her, holding his drink in one hand with his other hand on his knee. He is the picture of cool and casual. Lily wonders how he can do that—just seem so supremely relaxed all the time. She often wonders if her own manic, nervous energy reflects in her body language, and resolves to adopt more of Potter's nonchalance.

"What?" he says, tilting his head at her. "You're staring at me."

"I'm just—" She swallows, looking down at Buttercup who has now curled up in Lily's lap, snoozing softly. "I don't get how you're always so calm. You're never angry. You just seem to coast through everything, and…I dunno. I guess that's all I wanted to say."

"Well, some of that is just that I'm spoiled, Evans," James replies, grinning unabashedly. "I haven't got any brothers or sisters so my parents have been obsessed with me since I was born."

"Okay, well _that_ makes sense, but the rest…"

"The rest is that I just don't care what people think about me," he says, and the way he says it, Lily knows he meant for it to be more pointed. She knows he means to say, _You care too much about what people think of you_ , but he's too polite to say something like that to her.

She sighs. "I wish I was like that. I care what _everyone_ thinks of me."

" _Everyone,_ Evans? Even me?"

She looks back up at him, her mouth open slightly in surprise. Then, she smiles playfully at him, ducking her eyes to look at him through her eyelashes. "Do you want me to care what you think of me, Potter?"

This time, she doesn't miss when he blushes, and her heart leaps. _Are they flirting?_

"Evans, you've known for years what I think about you," he says in a low voice, and yes, it's happening. _He's flirting with her, and she likes it!_ She resolves to put this down in her journal where it'll go forever because if she doesn't write it down, she'll think about this moment every day until the moment she dies.

"I don't know what you think about me now." She's looking at him now, her heart thudding in her throat.

"Do you want me to tell you?"

Her pulse ticks up. "Yes."

"I—"

But right then, another goat trots up to Lily, bleating loudly at her. This one is bigger, and she has the same markings as Buttercup, who has been woken by her mother's cries.

"Best give little Lucifer back to her mum," the barman says from the other end of the bar.

"Yes, sir!" Lily says, scooping up Buttercup, hopping off her stool and setting the kid down, who ignores Lily now in favor of her mother. Lily watches as they trot off down the long, dingy bar, and as she looks up, her eyes lock with a set of black eyes framed by long, black hair. _Severus._ They look at each other for several long moments, or maybe it's only a few seconds, but before too long, James is following Lily's eyeline. Now Severus sees that Lily is here with James, and James sees that Lily has locked eyes with Severus.

Severus is sitting in the far corner, which would be obscured by complete darkness if the tiny little window and a roaring fire hadn't illuminated the space. At the table with him are Damon Mulciber and Roland Avery, his idiotic friends who Lily loathed and who loathed her right back. _Messing with dark magic_ , she'd told him once. _They're messing with dark magic. Do you know what they tried to do to Mary the other day?_

There's someone else there with them, too. His back to her, but the man sitting with them is tall with silvery blonde hair tied back with a black ribbon. On the back of his chair hangs an expensive looking cloak with silver fastenings, and—

James grabs Lily's upper arm, his fingers gripping her tightly. "What in Merlin and Morgana's name is _he_ doing here?" he hisses into her ear.

"Ouch, James—" She winces, looking down at where he's still holding her. "You're hurting me."

"Oh—what?" With alarm, he releases her as she climbs back onto the stool next to him. "Sorry. But—" His eyes widen as he looks back at the table. Severus is no longer looking at Lily, his dark eyes focused back on the blonde man. "Do you _know_ who that is?"

"The blonde bloke?" She racks her brain for a moment. "Potter, I haven't the faintest."

James leans in toward Lily. "It's bloody Lucius Malfoy!" he says in a low voice, so low that Lily very nearly misses what he's saying.

"Malfoy? Wasn't he a prefect our first year?"

"Yeah, he was in sixth year our first year," James says, and his mouth is twisted with distaste. "I _hate_ him."

"Why?"

"Well, for starters, he's a bloody git," James snarls, glancing over his shoulder at the table now.

Lily rolls her eyes. "Did he take too many points from you or something?"

James rolls his eyes right back at her. "No it's not because he _took too many points from me_ ," he replies, mimicking her so rudely that she grumbles at his impression. "It's because he's a bloody Pureblood obsessive who's about to marry Sirius's cousin. Everyone knows he's a—" and again, James lowers his voice so he's almost inaudible. "—a Death Eater."

The words shoot through Lily like an arrow. If Severus is meeting with a known Death Eater, then the rumors are true. She glances over her shoulder at Severus, who isn't looking at her now, but has resumed his attention to Lucius Malfoy.

"Maybe they're just catching up?" she suggests, not believing it in her heart. If Severus wanted to catch up with Lucius Malfoy, why wouldn't he simply write him a letter? Why would he meet him here, in the Hog's Head, instead of the Three Broomsticks?

James's face hardens, a tic going off in his clenched jaw. "No offense, Evans," he says through gritted teeth. "But you have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to Snape."

"I—" Lily peeks back at Severus, deep in conversation with Malfoy, his heavy brows creased with concentration and, Lily noticed, a bit of worry. She always knew when Severus was worried—he wore that same expression the night he'd come to Gryffindor Tower to apologize to her after calling her a Mudblood. When he was a boy, he used to wear that expression when his parents fought, which was often. Lily knows that expression.

She tears her gaze back to Potter, and relents. "I suppose you're right."

He doesn't look smug or satisfied, however, like she expected him to. James looks _grim_. "We have to tell Dumbledore first thing when we get back to the castle," he mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose underneath his glasses like he has a headache. "Dumbledore will want to know students are meeting with Malfoy."

"James!" Lily hisses now. "They're getting up—they're leaving!"

James whirls around on his stool, and indeed, the three Slytherins and Lucius Malfoy are pulling on their cloaks, avoiding each others' eyes, their faces completely inscrutable. Lily suddenly wished that she were a Legilimens—would she be able to read Severus's mind? Creep around in that brain of his, stroll through the halls of his mind, pick up and skim the books in the library of his head. What would she find? A confused boy? Or a man who had chosen to devote his life to darkness?

Severus is determinedly avoiding Lily's eyes, and she looks away from him, her eyes flicking between her drink and James, who has an expression of the utmost loathing etched across every plane of his face as Lucius Malfoy crosses the room toward the exit.

"Well, hello, Potter," Lucius Malfoy says, his grey eyes spotting James.

"Hello, Lucius," James replied acidly, his lips barely moving.

They stare at each other for a moment, and then Lucius clears his throat, gesturing toward Lily. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?"

"No, I don't think I will," James says. "It's best that she not know you."

Lily clears her throat embarrassedly as Lucius fixes his cold gray eyes onto her, sweeping over her face, her wild curls, and her Muggle clothes. His lip curls into a sneering smile, and he says, "I remember you. Evans, right?"

"Leave her alone, Malfoy," James warns, setting his drink down with a loud clunk, and turning to face Lucius now. Lily twists her hands anxiously in her lap, her eyes moving rapidly between Lucius, James, and Severus, who is looking at a point directly over Lily's shoulder.

"Potter, I just want to introduce myself to your girlfriend," Lucius says in a wounded voice, as if James has offended him. "I want to meet the future Mrs. Potter."

Lily's face feels as if it's on fire, and she knows she's turned a bold, unbecoming shade of vermilion. Lucius smirks at her, not hiding his obvious amusement at her humiliation.

"What are you even doing here?" James snarls, hopping down from his barstool and inching closer to Lily, angling his body toward Lucius as if he's readying for a fight. "Shouldn't you be trying to buy your way onto the school governors?"

Lucius's cold, bemused expression becomes a mask of fury at James's words. His lip curls coldly again, his hands flexing into fists, and Lily thinks that he may actually hit James. "You don't know what you're talking about, Potter," Lucius snarls. "Why don't you run along back to the school now like a good little boy?"

James takes a step forward, coming nearly nose-to-nose with Lucius Malfoy's pointed nose. "Wouldn't Professor Dumbledore love to know that you were here, _Malfoy_?" James spits out. "I'm sure that would _certainly_ get you on the board of governors. Especially when he learns that you're doing extracurriculars with his pupils."

Lucius narrows his eyes. "Nice try, Potter. Dumbledore doesn't make those decisions."

James laughs now, a spiteful sound that Lily's never heard from him before. "You really think they don't listen to Dumbledore, don't you, Malfoy?" He laughs again, this time softer and more mocking. "I'm barely eighteen, and even I know that they take Dumbledore's recommendation seriously. Big man like you, I'd think you'd know that _at least_."

Lucius's pale cheeks color slightly, but he opens his mouth anyway, his voice low, but clear as day to Lily's ears. "If you and your family joined me, Potter, you could have _any_ woman you want, and you could stop chasing Mudbloods."

James rears back, his fists clenched, and simultaneously, the three Slytherin students pull out their wands, pointing them at James. Lily leaps off the stool, launching herself between James and the Slytherins, stretching out her arms in a protective gesture. "Stop!" she cries out, trying to make herself as big as she possibly can. "Please, leave us the fuck alone!"

Her voice rings out across the pub, and a man in a dingy hat and an eyepatch growls, "You tell 'em, girlie."

"Oy!" Ab the barman roars, striding across the bar, his blue eyes flashing. "What's happening here?"

"Nothing at all, my good man," Lucius says silkily. His eyes meet James's once more. "Think about what I said, Potter."

"Never," James replies, his chest heaving behind Lily.

"Best wishes to your parents, Potter," Lucius says smoothly, sweeping away with Severus and his friends in tow. Lily doesn't miss that Severus throws a hate-filled glance at James. She watches them leave before rounding on Potter.

"What exactly is your problem?!" She nearly shrieks, throwing her arms over her head. "Why are you always about to fight someone?"

James's eyes widen, and he looks mad now. "Did you even _hear_ what he said?!"

"Of course I heard him, but you don't have to haul off and punch him for _that!"_

James shakes his head at her, taking a huge gulp of his drink with a shaking hand. "He shouldn't say things like that. He shouldn't be _fucking comfortable_ saying things like that. Ever."

Lily stares at James now, her expression softening. She wants to say, _Potter, every day you show me a new part of yourself,_ but she doesn't.

That night, she writes it.


	5. Chapter Five

**Author Notes:** Thank you to **Dancingonstars &** **Killian** for reading and reviewing! As a reminder, reviews can be questions, comments, predictions, and even flames. I read every single review, and they really do make me a better writer and help motivate me to keep writing. Please leave a review if you're able!

**Disclaimer:** I do not own these characters, and I'm not making any money from this work. These characters and this setting belongs to JKR.

* * *

**Chapter Five**

"And finally, the rounds schedule is set, and Evans and I can't step in if anyone is doing anything foolish, alright?" James's eyes flit to Jeffrey Gerhardt, the Ravenclaw prefect whose appearance had been expertly fixed by Madam Pomfrey, and who remained mum on what exactly he was doing to flush a deep crimson. "Is that clear?"

The prefects nod, assenting to this statement. "Great!" James says, glancing at Lily. "Anything else, Evans?"

"No, I don't think so." Her eyes travel over the room, the gathered students, all wearing their prefect badges on the front of their robes. "Okay, thank you, everyone!" Lily announces to the room. "This meeting is adjourned!"

"Seventh years hang back!" James added, raising his voice over the din of everyone shuffling their belongings. "We have room assignments for your houses for Stonehenge."

Lily doesn't miss the exasperated sigh that Severus lets out, and she rolls her eyes. "It won't take long and then you can get back to whatever is so urgent," she snaps, forcing herself to look at all the seventh year prefects, but directing the comment straight to Severus. He straightens his spine, raising his chin in the air, and Lily sees that he looks completely depleted. _He's exhausted_ , she notes mentally, her mind wandering back to how he had looked in the Hog's Head. Had he been that tired then? When did those dark circles appear?

James gathers the charts, passing them around as Lily shrugs her cardigan off, the classroom once again its usual boiling temperature. There's a low murmur of interest as the remaining prefects review their room assignments, and then—

"Hey," says Severus in his low drawl. "You've put yourselves next to each other."

"Shove off, Snape," Remus immediately retorts. "What's it to you if—"

"As much as I hate to agree with Snivellus here," interrupts Margaret Ashwood, a petite Hufflepuff girl who Lily quite liked. "I agree. You can't put yourselves right next to one another! It's not f—"

"You all had the opportunity to make special requests," James interrupts. "I didn't hear a single peep from any of you about your own rooms, and I don't see why you should all be so up in arms about mine and Evans' rooms being close to each other. We literally _already_ share a common room and—"

"Must be good to set yourself up to get shagged on the school trip," Severus sneers, and Lily flushes deeply, the back of her neck prickling with mortification.

"We're not—" she starts, but by this point, James has taken two long strides forward so he's standing directly in front of Severus.

"You're out of line, Snape," he says deliberately. "Say that again, and I'll make sure Dumbledore takes that badge away before you can wash that greasy mop of yours." James leans forward, pointing aggressively at the prefect badge that gleams from Severus's chest.

"James!" Lily says, alarmed. " _Really!_ "

"I don't see what business it is of yours that the Head Boy and Girl need to stay close to each other on the trip in case of an emergency," says Adam Bones, the other Hufflepuff seventh year prefect. Lily feels a rush of gratitude to Adam.

"Well, because—" Alison Lee interrupts, but James holds up his hand now.

"Enough!" he nearly roars, and all the prefects lean back in their chairs, surprise etched across all their faces. Only Severus remains impassive. He has, after all, seen the uglier side of James many, many times before.

But for the others, this is a side of the Head Boy they haven't yet seen, Lily realizes. Usually, James is easygoing, kind, and _fun_. They expect sternness from Lily, but not James, the king of the Marauders, chief mischief-maker. He glares at his peers. "The assignments, like rounds, are final. Your Heads of Houses and Professor Dumbledore himself has approved them, so if you have an issue with it, I suggest you take it up with your Head of House. I'm sure Professor Slughorn—" and now James fixes his eyes directly onto Severus again "—would love to hear your issue with Evans and I rooming near one another—not even in the _same_ bloody room."

Severus's pallid face colors slightly, and Lily feels a swell of satisfaction at his embarrassment, a feeling so foreign to her that it catches her off guard. When they were young, did she ever imagine his humiliation would make her feel good? _No,_ she thinks. _We were best friends._

"Er, any other questions?" Lily asks, trying to break the tension in the room.

Grumbling, they all shake their heads in unison. "Great!" Lily says perkily. "Please distribute the assignments as soon as you can. Tomorrow if possible! And if anyone has any issues with their assignment, like James said, you can address it with your Head of House." They stare blankly at her, except Remus, who is grinning for no apparent reason.

"Okay, you can go," James says huffily, waving his hand carelessly toward the door as he turns toward Lily, and in a low voice says, "Bloody ingrates," so that only she can hear him. She bites back a smile.

"Want me to wait for you, Prongs?" Remus asks as the last of the others filter out of the room.

James glances at Lily and then shakes his head. Remus acquiesces, departing the room alone, leaving James sitting moodily on the desk.

"Are you alright?" Lily asks after a long silence interrupted only by the occasional crackle of the fire.

James looks at her through his dark eyelashes, running a hand through his hair. "Have you decided about telling Dumbledore about what we saw in Hogsmeade?"

Lily's blood runs cold. Since the day of their eventful visit to Hogsmeade, James had been hounding Lily about going straight to Professor Dumbledore about what they saw there, their interaction with Lucius Malfoy, and about restricting Snape, Mulciber, and Avery's access to the village. Suffice it to say, Lily hadn't agreed. "They're not doing anything illegal or dangerous," she had protested as James had cornered her in the common room the day after the Hogsmeade trip.

"We're not accusing them of anything, Evans!" he had hissed, his eyes flashing dangerously, and for one fleeting moment, Lily saw the James who had bullied Snape for so many years. His face was filled with a kind of loathing that Lily couldn't imagine feeling.

"You _are_ accusing them of something!" Lily had pointed out. "You think they're all Death Eaters, you said it yourself."

"Don't you think it's a bit too convenient that Snape, Mulciber, and Avery, who've been dabbling in the Dark Arts since they were basically eleven years old, are meeting with Lucius Malfoy, who is one of Voldemort's most vocal supporters?"

"They're also members of the same house!" Lily had replied. "How do you know they're not just being friendly?"

"Why not be friendly at the Three Broomsticks then?" James had countered. "Why were they at the Hog's Head?"

" _We_ were at the Hog's Head!" And they had volleyed like this back and forth this for nearly a full hour until, exhausted, James had relented.

"Fine," he had said, falling into a chair and pinching the bridge of his nose under his glasses. "We'll do it your way."

"Fine," she had said, and fuming, she had stormed up the steps and launched herself into her four poster, closing the hangings and writing down every single frustrating thing about James bloody Potter until she had run out of ink and steam.

Tonight, she watches him again, and he looks much the same as he had the other night. His mouth is set, his jaw tight, and he's once more pinching the bridge of his nose. But then he drops his hand and looks at her expectantly, and her stomach flips under the intensity of his gaze.

"I just—" She clears her throat nervously. "I just don't think we have anything to tell Professor Dumbledore because they didn't—"

"For fuck's sake, Evans!" His voice is pleading, not angry. His frustration is acute. It's palpable, as if she could reach out and touch it with her fingertips, its mass heavy and texture coarse.

"Potter, we don't have any _evidence_ of wrongdoing," she says quietly, and he lets out a frustrated puff of air, running his hand through his hair again, making it stand straight up and giving him a look of being recently electrocuted. He fidgets with his school tie, loosening it, and Lily bites back another smile, his fidgeting becoming more and more endearing.

"Evans, I'm not accusing them of anything!" They're caught again, back to the night of the Hogsmeade visit, and it's a wheel they're on, running and running until they come right back around to the exact same thing.

"I know!" Her voice comes out imploring, begging James to see her side. "But I can't just go to Professor Dumbledore and tell him we saw some students having drinks with a former student while we ourselves were out of bounds."

"Evans—" He runs a hand over his face, and with a start, Lily realizes that he, too, looks exhausted. He looks blearily at her. "You just don't want to tell Dumbledore because it's Snape."

Lily looks askance. "What is _that_ supposed to mean?" Her voice is sharper than she intends, but the effect is instantaneous. James's eyes narrow, his mouth pressed into a thin line.

"You _know_ what it means," he says acerbically. "And _you_ think _I_ have a blind spot when it comes to Hess—"

"How do you expect to be an Auror if you just accuse people of things without any evidence?!" Lily exclaims, gesticulating furiously.

"How do _you_ expect to be an Auror if you can't see what's happening under your bloody nose?" James retorts, crossing his arms tightly across his chest.

They glare at each other. Lily wipes her sweaty palms on her skirt, and she thinks she might cry, angry tears clawing their way up. She takes a deep, shaky breath, and then speaks. "If we accuse them of something, and it's not true, they'll be better about hiding. Isn't it better to be certain, absolutely certain before putting all our cards on the table?"

James's expression changes abruptly, his mouth opening with surprise. His eyes skate across her face as he processes her words, and then he says, "That's actually…a really good point."

Now it's her turn to be surprised. "Thank you," she says, hoping that this will break some of the tension between them.

"But Dumbledore doesn't have to _say_ anything to them," James counters, and Lily huffs. Of _course_ he's going to fight her on this _again_. It's what James and Lily have done best over the years: fight and argue. Nothing's really changed between the two of them, and for some reason, that makes her sadder than she wants it to make her. "Don't you think Dumbledore should at least _know_?"

Lily shakes her head. "He's going to think we're stupid," she replies. "Students are allowed to go to the village and meet up with friends! You even said that you thought Hestia would meet up with that bloke—so what's different about Severus meeting up with Malfoy?"

"Hestia's bloke isn't a Pureblood maniac with a lot of money!" James responds. "Lucius Malfoy is bad news, Evans. You heard him. You heard what he said to me. He's _recruiting_. He tried to recruit me!"

"Marlene's parents are Aurors, and all they do is _gather evidence_ ," Lily says, thinking, _Aha! I've got him now!_ But he has a retort to this, too.

"And you really think they don't share every shred of information they have with the people over their heads? You think they just keep everything to themselves? What if Dumbledore knows something about Malfoy?"

"Argh, fine!" Lily says. "Fine, let's go _tell Dumbledore._ I'm sure he'll be thrilled to know his Head Boy and Girl are traipsing all over Hogsmeade, going into the Shrieking Shack, and—"

At Lily's words, James's face whitens, and she halts mid-sentence, her brow furrowing in confusion. "What?" she asks. "What happened? Have I put my foot in it again somehow?" Her mind wanders back to what she'd said about James's ailing parents last week.

"Evans, you can't tell Dumbledore that we went into the Shrieking Shack," he says quietly, and now it's him whose voice is beseeching, his eyes trained directly into hers.

A flame of anger licks at the back of her mind. She wants to yell at him because for all his conclusions about Severus Snape and what he's hiding, James Potter is hiding things, too. She wants to ask him _why_ and _tell me_ and _how could you ever understand_ and _have you ever loved someone the way I have_ , but instead she purses her lips tightly, looking down at her feet where they're planted There's a small scuff on her right shoe, catching the firelight.

"You can't," James repeats. "I would be in so much trouble if Dumble—"

"Fine," she replies, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. "But Potter, think about what _you're_ hiding and just consider that maybe Severus—" James flinches at the sound of the name. Lily pushes onward, choosing to ignore him. "—that maybe Severus has a similar secret. Do you really want to get into the business of sharing everyone else's secrets except your own? Why do you get to keep everything about you private, but you—" And at this train of thought, she inadvertently flinches. "—you read my journal, the whole thing, didn't you?" He nods, and she winds her arms even tighter across her body. "That was private, Potter."

"It was on _my_ bloody bed!" he says hotly.

"Okay, but you knew within the first few sentences, didn't you? That it was an accident?" She's crossing a line now, and she's not sure why she's pushing this hard except that she's angry and frustrated and she wants him to know _why—_ why she's so reticent to turn Severus in for something that neither she nor James can prove is wrong.

There was a long silence, and then—"Yes." He says it softly, but it's deafening to her. "Yes, I knew I wasn't supposed to read it."

"But you read it anyway."

With his eyes downcast, he nods. She's seething now. "See?! You don't give _anyone_ the kind of…" She casts about for the right word. "… _leeway_ that you ask of everyone else. You want to tell Dumbledore about Severus meeting with Malfoy, but you can't even tell him that _you_ took _me_ to the Shrieking Shack."

He lifts his eyes to meet hers, and she's startled to see how _despondent_ he looks. She takes a step back, trying to give herself distance, but he hops down off the desk and meets her in one stride.

"Evans," he says, his voice low in his throat. "I know I'm right about Snape. I _know_ I am. My instincts—" He takes a shaky breath. "—are good. They're good, okay? But if you don't want to tell Dumbledore about Snape and you trust him…then I trust you. I trust you, Evans."

Lily raises her chin. "I _don't_ trust him," she says, and she's surprised to find out that it's true. When did that happen? "But I don't want to get him into trouble." She pauses. "So kind of like you, I suppose."

The ghost of a smile crosses James's lips as he looks down at her. He's lit from behind by the fire, his edges crimson and flickering, and for a wild moment, Lily wants to reach out to touch him, the edges of his hair, run her fingers across his unshaven jaw, place her palm over his heaving chest to feel the drumbeat of his heart. She's never seen someone quite so beautiful before, someone real and open and vulnerable and yet, still so unknown to her. She wants to crawl inside him, know all his secrets, all his thoughts, unlock his mysteries until she's bored, bored of him and all his stupid stories and his stupid dimples and—

"So you really want to be an Auror then?" His mouth moves and her gaze drops to his lips as he moistens them, his tongue flicking over his lips in an aching sort of way. Lily feels a lurch low in her belly that has nothing to do with his question and everything to do with his mouth. She reminds herself to write about this moment in her journal, put it away forever so she never has to think about his damn perfect mouth ever again.

"Well…yes." Lily raises a shoulder casually. "There's nothing else I've even considered, I suppose."

He nods, an acknowledgement of what Lily already knows to be true: that James had also never considered another career, that he knew he was destined for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. "Me, too," he says quietly, and Lily bites the corner of her lip to stop a smile from crossing her lips.

"Why do you want to?" Lily asks, genuinely curious. After all, Potter had money. A lot of money. He didn't need to work to live.

He leans back against the desk, crossing one ankle over the other and examining his shoes. "Same reason everyone does right now, I suppose," he replies, as if it's some unremarkable thing that he's saying. "To fight Voldemort."

It's Lily's turn to acknowledge him, to give him a sign that she wanted that same thing, too. "Me, too," she says quietly. "I learned so much about it from Marlene's parents, you know. You should ask her about it!"

He chuckles. "I don't think she'll have much to do with me after we caught her and Padfoot the other night!"

"She'll come around," Lily says, thinking fondly of her best friend, who was probably snogging Sirius Black somewhere right at this very moment. "You just need to try with her. That's the key to Marlene. She has to know you want to make it right."

"So…ask her about her Auror parents?"

Lily nods encouragingly. "Yeah! They met at the Auror Academy—her mum's American, she didn't go to Hogwarts—and they have the _wildest_ stories of some of the dark stuff they've found. You remember that whole thing with the werewolves and how Fenrir Greyback was just biting people's kids for revenge?"

Lily thinks she sees James's face pale for a moment, but it may just be a trick of the light. "I think I heard something about that," he says.

"Well, Marlene's parents did that case together when they were not much older than us!"

"You don't think McKinnon will murder me for telling her off the other night then?"

Lily pretends to think. "No, murder's not really her style. Might maim you a bit but-"

"Maiming only, got it."

They laugh together, and this feels _good,_ Lily thinks. James clears his throat. "But why do you want to, Evans? You're great at Potions. You could apply for the Potions Master license or start a business. Work at someone else's company as a brewer or be a Healer…" He trails off, looking expectantly at her.

"I didn't always want to," she admits. "Be an Auror, that is. But then—Severus—" A lump rises in her throat, and she feels the Severus-shaped hole inside her more terribly than she has in years.

James's eyes narrow. "Snape? What about him?"

She chooses her words with caution, trying not to divulge too much. "I—we were friends, Potter, and then he got into a bad crowd, and I thought I could—"

"—help him." James finishes her sentence easily, and his eyes are locked onto her face now. She fidgets with a stray curl that has escaped her bun, twisting it around and around her finger.

"I suppose." She shrugs. "Maybe he'd want to do something exciting with me. Leave his new, cool friends, and...y'know. Go to the Auror Academy with me."

James has a strange expression on his face. "You know, Evans, it's not _your_ fault that he's—" He pauses. "—not who you expected him to be. You didn't _make_ him call you that filthy word. Don't take responsibility for him when he won't even take it for himself."

Lily stares at James now, wondering if he knows that _he's_ not who she expected him to be, either. _When did you get so wise,_ she'll write later on a fresh page.

"And that's a bad reason to become an Auror, anyway," James points out, and Lily frowns.

"Well, that's not the _only_ reason!" she protests. "This is the only place I fit in. When I was growing up, I was just a weird little kid who people avoided because of my magic, but here, I'm just a student like anyone else."

"Evans," James says quietly. "You're definitely not like everyone else."

"I don't want him—" She swallows. "Voldemort. I don't want him to take that away from me."

James raises his eyebrows. "So let's tell Dumbledore what we saw."

"Argh!" Lily stands up, striding across the room to swing her schoolbag over her shoulders. "Let it go, James! Just let it go."

"You know I'm right!" he calls after her as she departs the meeting room fuming.

* * *

_Transfiguration should be outlawed_ , Lily thinks to herself, leaning back in her chair at the library and rubbing her eyes. She thinks she must have mascara under her eyes from her near constant rubbing, but she can't be bothered to check. _This is impossible!_

"Lil?" A voice breaks through the thick silence. Lily turns around in her seat to see Mary poking her head from around the tall stacks. Mary smiles at Lily, crossing the aisle and hopping onto the desk where all of Lily's things are strewn.

"Hi," Lily says croakily, not realizing she hasn't used her voice in a few hours as she's been working on their Transfiguration homework that's due tomorrow.

"Still trying to figure out those proofs for Mcgonagall?" Mary asks, and Lily nods miserably, rubbing her eyes again.

"I just don't get it!" Lily's voice is louder than she intends, but she can't help it. "Mare, if I don't get at least an Exceeds Expectations, the Auror Academy won't accept me."

"You know you can always ask me for help, right?" Mary says gently. "Let me see."

Lily hands over her parchment covered with the complicated numbers and figures she can't seem to solve no matter how much she references her Transfiguration textbook or looks over someone else's work. It would be abhorrent to cheat, but Lily has seriously considered it. Mary peers at Lily's work, picking up her discarded quill and scribbling her own notes on Lily's looping handwriting.

"Your work is right, but you keep forgetting to carry the one," Mary says after a few moments of reviewing Lily's work. "See here?"

Lily frowns, taking back the parchment and looking at Mary's work. For a moment, she pretends to understand, and then she looks up at Mary and says, "No." They burst into laughter, and Lily tosses the parchment on top of her books. "Have you finished the assignment then?"

Mary nods. "Finished last night."

"You bloody Tranfiguration genius." Lily shifts her body so she's facing Mary now, and smiles widely at her friend. It seems like she hasn't seen Mary or Marlene in weeks, even though they have meals and classes together. Lily playfully grabs Mary's ankle, pulling on it gently. "How are you?"

Mary shrugs. "Oh, fine," she replies, and then uncharacteristically, she blushes. Lily raises an eyebrow.

"Are you _sure_ you're fine?"

Mary starts to nod but then shakes her head. "No, I don't think I am." And now Lily can see the beginnings of tears begin to form in Mary's eyes.

"Mare!" Lily clambers up on the desk beside Mary, slipping an arm around her friend's shoulders. "What's wrong?

Mary blinks and the tears fall down her cheeks, and Lily squeezes Mary's shoulders tightly. For a moment, she just holds Mary as she weeps, rifling through her robe pockets for a handkerchief that she hands Mary wordlessly. They sit like that for a long moment, Lily leaning her head against Mary's shoulder, hoping to transfer comfort through the contact.

When Mary's tears slow and then finally stop, Lily lifts her head and loosens her grip on Mary's shoulder. "What's going on, Mare?"

Mary's eyes are red as she shifts to face Lily, her dark eyes trained on Lily's green ones. "Lily, you know that I only want you and Marlene to be happy, right?"

A pause. Lily nods. "…right."

Mary speaks haltingly. "Well, I suppose I'm just feeling a bit…left out. Marlene has Sirius now, and you have James, and I feel like I barely see you. We didn't see you in Hogsmeade because you were with him and—"

"Mary, we looked for you, I swear!" Lily replies, her heart aching at Mary's words.

Mary nods, wiping her damp eyes. "No, I know!" she says. "I know you did. I'm not mad at you or Marlene, or even at Sirius and James. I guess I just thought that if you had a boyfriend, it would mean that…I would, too? I don't know what I'm trying to say, only that—well, I miss you."

A swell of love for Mary rises inside Lily, and she reaches across the small space between them, grasping Mary in a fierce hug. "I'm sorry," Lily says. "I promise I'll try to be around more and—"

"No, no, I'm just being silly," Mary replies, reciprocating Lily's embrace with equal enthusiasm. "I just thought this year would be different than it's turning out to be. Who ever thought Marlene would finally act on her crush on Sirius Black, you know?"

Lily laughs, pulling back from the hug. "Well, to be fair, I kind of did that for her."

Mary's lips curve in a real, earnest smile, and Lily squeezes her knee gently, hoping that she's reassuring her. "Mare, I—"

" _Don't_ say you're sorry!" Mary replies sternly. "I don't want you to be sorry for being with Potter. You're honestly perfect for each other. I don't know why we didn't tell you to give him a chance earlier because you just seem more…" Mary pauses, considering Lily in a way that makes Lily feel extremely self-conscious. "You seem happier," Mary finishes. "Maybe you'll even break a rule or two."

Lily squirms now, dropping her eyes from Mary's and looking at a point just beyond her own knee. _I should tell her_ , Lily thinks as her palms start to sweat. Doesn't Mary, sweet Mary, deserve to know that Lily has been lying to her for weeks now? Mary, who thinks Lily seems happier with James Potter. Mary, who Lily would trust with her life, who Lily would cross oceans for. Lily tries to imagine how Mary would react if Lily told her that for nearly a month, she'd been in a sham relationship with James Potter for the sole purpose of making Hestia Jones jealous and getting Severus Snape to fuck off. Mary, of course, would be aghast at the journals being sent out, but Lily knew that Mary would then be angry that Lily had kept this from her for so long.

Mary didn't often get angry, but she had a strong moral compass and was loyal to the end. When she chose Lily's side over Hestia's at the end of their fifth year, she did it without hesitation, knowing in her heart that Hestia's rage was unreasonable, unconscionable, and unfair. Since then, Mary, alongside Marlene, had iced Hestia out, closing their little trio to outsiders. They had become an island unto themselves, and Lily didn't know it until now, but Mary had liked it that way. Opening their borders to Sirius and James—and ergo, Remus and Peter—felt to Mary like an invasion.

But Lily couldn't—wouldn't—tell Mary what she had been doing for the past few weeks. She had allowed herself to feel for James Potter the way that she had once felt for Severus, and that James didn't feel the same. Not even remotely, and in just a few weeks, their charade would be over. Lily wanted to reassure Mary, tell her that it would all be over soon, but she couldn't. Not without risking their entire friendship. Not without admitting everything—every small humiliating little detail that would culminate in James walking the halls with Hestia's hand in his and with Lily returning to her small life, governed by petty rules and homework and staying within the confines of acceptable behavior by hiding everything.

Lily reaches out to touch Mary's enviably smooth hair, a waterfall of deep chestnut pouring down her shoulders and falling to her waist. "Mare—" she says, pausing. _I should tell her_. "I'm sorry. I've been so busy and it's been so much with Head Girl duties and James and the school trip. But I'm _so_ glad you said something because _yes,_ I think we should make more time to spend together that's not just…doing schoolwork."

Mary perks up at this. "I would like that," she says slowly. "But I don't want to be a wet blanket for you and James, or Marlene and Sirius!"

"You're not!" Lily exclaims. "If anything, Marlene and Sirius are wet blanketing all of _us_ with their incessant snogging and groping."

Mary laughs, and Lily joins her. "They are _obsessed_ with each other."

"Who is?" a voice says from behind a bookshelf, and Marlene's freckly face pokes out from behind the stacks.

"You!" Mary giggles, pointing at Marlene, "and Black."

Marlene's reddens slightly, shaking back her glossy curls. "Well, we're both _very_ attractive, aren't we?"

" _You_ are definitely very attractive," Lily replies, scooting over to make room for Marlene. "Jury's still out on Sirius though."

Marlene sighs. "He's the most gorgeous boy in the whole school, and he's _mine_. Weird." Her eyes slide out of focus as she sighs again, a dopey look on her face.

"Get a grip, freak!" Mary says, lightly punching Marlene's shoulder. "You sound like you're in love or something."

Marlene shrugs her shoulders high up, raising her arms overhead in a catlike stretch. "I think I am."

Lily gawks at her, and Marlene smiles slyly. "What? It can't be a surprise to you both. I've liked him for so long. He's great, and he's crazy about me. And I feel the same way, so…"

Now both Mary and Lily are staring at Marlene. "Have you…y'know… _said_ the words?" Mary asks.

Marlene shakes her head. "No, not yet, but I know how I feel. It'll happen soon, I think."

Lily looks aghast at Marlene's words and the casualness with which she says them. "But what if he…doesn't feel that way?"

"Lily!" Mary chides.

"What?!"

Marlene chuckles. "I mean, it doesn't matter, does it?"

"Doesn't it?" Lily asks.

"It doesn't," Marlene insists. "If he doesn't, that will hurt, but it wouldn't change how I feel. It would be absolute hell, but it wouldn't change the time we spent together, y'know? It wouldn't change that I got to fall in love and have that experience and…what?" Marlene stops because both Lily and Mary are staring at her like she's sprouted a second head.

"Who are you and what have you done with Marlene McKinnon?" Mary demands.

"Shall I owl your mother and tell her you've been replaced by someone completely different and that she shouldn't expect to see her daughter ever again?" Lily asks.

Marlene laughs. "I mean, this can't be surprising to you both!" she exclaims. "Lily, surely you know how this is—"

Lily feels her cheeks flame, and she ducks her head, avoiding both her friends' eyes. "No, I—" She clears her throat. "No, it's not like that with me."

Marlene looks confused for a moment, then shrugs. "You'll get there," she replies, tapping the side of her nose mischievously. "I just know it. Besides, Sirius told me—" She then stops, her eyes widening, her lips pressing together.

"What? Sirius told you what?" Mary presses.

"Nothing!" Marlene says, her eyes averted as she starts fidgeting with the hem of her skirt. "Nothing at all. I misspoke."

"Marlene!" Lily exclaims. "Tell m—"

" _Ladies!"_ Madam Bollier, the severely elderly librarian, is now crossing the library. "I won't have _shouting_ in my library! And—" Her eyes narrow so her eyes are snakelike slits. "—sitting on the desks?!"

The three girls jump off their perch, Lily gathering her things hurriedly as Mary and Marlene start apologizing profusely to Bollier, who is looking positively menacing at this point. "I expect better from _you,_ Miss Evans!" the librarian screeches as Lily follows her friends out of the library.

"Sorry, Madam Bollier!" Lily cries over her shoulder, now running out of the library, giggling with Mary and Marlene as they return to Gryffindor tower, out of breath as they collapse in their beds, still laughing.

It isn't until later that Lily remembers what Marlene had said. What did Sirius tell her about James that she had let slip?

* * *

"Lily!"

Lily closes her eyes as she's crossing the common room with Mary and Marlene the following morning. _Potter_ , she thinks, not wanting to have a run in with her fake boyfriend this morning. She couldn't stop thinking about what Marlene had said the evening before in the library, and Lily decides she doesn't want to know what Sirius had told Marlene. She'll write it down in her journal and forget about it, and that was that.

"We'll wait for you," Mary says, but Lily shakes her head.

"I'm sure it's just some Head stuff," Lily replies, but Marlene gives her a sly smile.

"Suuuuure."

Lily rolls her eyes, then turns to see James weaving through cushy armchairs and small tables toward her. She feels a hitch in her breath as his brown eyes catch the sunlight streaming through Gryffindor Tower, his tie just slightly crooked just like his smile.

"Hi," he says, approaching her.

"Hi, James," she replies, looking at him in a way she hopes expresses annoyance, but really, all she can notice from her vantage point is that James has a small smattering of freckles across his nose. _Great,_ she thinks to herself. _First dimples, now freckles. I wonder what else he's hiding under there._ This thought causes her mind to fray slightly.

"I thought we'd walk down to breakfast together." He leans in closer to her, lowering his voice. "I know for a fact that Hestia is down there, and I—"

"Okay," Lily agrees quickly. She doesn't want him to finish that sentence, doesn't want him to constantly remind her that their being together is a means to an end, and the end is Hestia Jones.

"How was your night?" James asks her. "I didn't see you last night."

"I was in the library trying to finish my Transfiguration proofs," Lily replies, hopping out of the portrait hole.

"I can help you with those, if you want," he offers. "I'm taking on extra work from McGonagall anyway. I helped her develop some of the proofs and—"

"Wait, what?" Lily raises her eyebrows. "You _helped_ her develop her curriculum?"

James shrugs. "What, like you haven't taken on extra work from Slughorn?"

"Well, I did a bit last term, but this year with being Head Girl and—" She gestures widely. "—everything else, I haven't had the time to take on more on top of our N.E.W.T.s studies."

His eyes glint mischievously. "I'm pretty good at Transfiguration, Evans," he says. "Maybe you never noticed but—"

"Mary's helping me with it," Lily says quickly. She doesn't want him to help her with _anything_ , and she suddenly feels a surge of regret well up inside her. What is she even _doing_ here with him? Why is she still doing this? Her mind feels jumbled as they descend down into the Entrance Hall, and then, without warning, James slides a warm hand up her back, placing it gently on the back of her neck. A palpable shiver runs down her spine, and she knows he felt it because he looks down at her, an expression of surprise crossing his stupid handsome face.

"Evans…?"

But they're moving into the Great Hall now, and there's no way for Lily to explain her involuntary reaction to his warm fingers on the base of her neck. Without really seeing her, Lily spots Hestia watching them, and she feels another set of eyes on them, this set dark and angry. Severus.

James lightly steers Lily to a spot where they don't usually sit. "James, what—" But he gestures for her to sit, and she complies, her mind still swimming with glorious hand slipping up her spine so she can't even protest when he takes a seat next to her, and with an exaggerated gesture, he procures a small folded bit of parchment from his trouser pocket.

"A note," he says with a smile. "As promised."

"For me?" She takes it, and with a glance along the table, she sees the gesture has had the intended effect. Hestia's beautiful visage is red, and Lily can tell that she's holding back tears. She feels a lump rise in her own throat as she turns back to James, whose eyes are fixed on Lily's face.

"You're going to read that, right?" he asks, pouring himself a cup of coffee and loading up his breakfast plate.

"Of course, Potter," Lily says drily. "I can't wait to see the poetry you wrote to me."

He ignores her, his eyes crinkling into a smile. "Now you have to write _me_ one."

Lily's pulse ticks up as she thinks about the note she wrote in her journal to him. He'll never see it, and she's not sure if that fact gives her relief or regret. What if he did see it? Would he laugh at her? Lily can almost hear him say, _too little, too late, Evans!_ He would definitely show his mates and they'd have a right laugh about her spilling the contents of her heart out to him. She vows to never show James the new journal, the one she Transfigured into a dull looking Ancient Runes reference text that no one had looked at twice. She keeps it with her at all times now, not wanting to risk leaving it in the Gryffindor girls' dormitory and it getting out _again._

Lily glances up to see Mary and Marlene mouthing _why are you sitting there_ and giving her pointed looks. She returns their glances, indicating toward James, rolling her eyes to indicate how annoying he was, but then James catches her and she has to clear her throat and pretend like she wasn't doing anything.

"Well?" he said.

"Well what?"

"Evans, were you listening to anything I just said? I said, now you have to write me a note."

Lily stabs a piece of fruit more roughly than she would have liked, feeling James's eyes on her face. "I'm not really writing anymore," she lies. "Not after all my journals got out."

His eyebrows furrow downward, a deep crease appearing between them, and Lily wonders if he's angry, but when he speaks, his voice is level. "Well, that's too bad. You're a good writer, Evans."

She swivels her head to look at him next to her now, and his face is so close to hers that if she had been even an inch closer, they would have knocked heads. "Don't tease," she admonishes him. "It's not nice."

"I'm not teasing!" he exclaims. "I swear! I would have read it even it weren't for me. I would have read Snape's, even."

"Shhhh!" Lily hisses, glancing around to ensure no one was near enough to hear them. "No one else knows about that!"

"Sorry," he says, lowering his voice. "Sorry, I forgot. But I'm being serious—" He pauses. "I would have. Even if it would have made me violently ill and quite possibly killed me."

Lily rolls her eyes at him, turning back to eat the piece of melon she had speared, when James speaks again. "Speaking of Snape," he starts, his voice even lower than before. "I still think you should reconsider—"

"What. The. Hell. Potter." She glares at him, and this time, she doesn't care who's watching them. If Hestia is watching them have an argument, then the whole display with the note was moot. But when Lily looks at the place where Hestia was sitting before, it's empty. She's left. Lily turns back to James now, her eyes blazing. "Will you leave it alone?!"

"Why?" he asks. "Why should I leave it alone? I still think we should tell someone. Maybe not Dumbledore, but what about…" He pauses, deep in thought. "…Slughorn? He's their head of house and—"

"Are you kidding?" Lily cries. "Slughorn? He's probably best pals with that Malfowl bloke."

"Malfoy."

"Whatever!"

"Ok, so McGonagall then!" James pleads. "Lily, come on. We need to fucking _say something_ before someone at the school or in the village gets hurt."

"You know, I think you're being awfully hypocritical about this whole thing," Lily mutters, trying not to let her friends see that she and James are having a row. "What if someone had told McGonagall before you got those third years drunk, huh? You'd call _them_ a _snitch_."

"Well, that's different because—"

"Because you're you, right? King Potter, above the rules, but wants to mete out punishment to the Slytherins just because."

His face hardens, his mouth no longer smiling but a thin line to match hers. "I don't want to _mete out_ punishment, Lily," he says flatly. "I just want to make sure that everything they're doing is above board."

"Because everything you do is above board, right?"

"I'm not into the bloody _Dark Arts,_ Lily. Come on. This is not even in the same class as the things we get up to!" His gaze is hard, unrelenting, and Lily has to look away for a moment because looking at him right now is like looking into a harsh, merciless light.

Lily can feel her pulse ticking in her throat, and suddenly everything clicks in place for her. She's furious not because James wants to tell on Snape, but because he _still_ doesn't want to tell anyone about all the things he's done. All the people he hurt, including Severus, who he hasn't even _apologized_ to for doing what he did, and then, on top of everything else, he keep pushing and pushing Lily.

"Why are you pushing this so much?" Lily demands, her eyes narrowing. "What's in it for you?"

His eyes grow cold now, carrying none of that characteristic warmth that Lily is used to. "Why does something have to be _in it_ for me for me to want to protect the school and the village?"

"Because you only do things when there's something in it for you." She's not sure why she says it. She very nearly blurts it out, but her word choice is deliberate. "You wanted to pretend to date me because it'll help you with Hestia, right?"

" _You_ wanted something out of this, too _,"_ James points out coolly. "Don't forget that snogging me kept you out of the clutches of Hogwarts' creepiest Death—"

"Shut up!" Lily hisses. "You don't even know—"

"Neither do _you_!"

Without another word, Lily rockets to her feet and storms out of the Great Hall. With a great heaving breath, she pushes open the front doors of the entrance hall only to be rendered breathless by a blast of icy air. She doesn't have her cloak, she realizes, and with a frustrated groan, she turns around to mount the marble staircase, wondering if she can hide in her dormitory all day, when a hand pulls her behind the staircase instead.

James.

"I thought I made it perfectly clear that I didn't want to talk about this any longer," Lily says, putting as much rudeness as she can in her voice.

"You can't just _leave_ whenever a conversation isn't going your way, Evans," James snarls. "You still have to talk to me!"

"I don't want to." She moves to turn away, but he grabs her again, this time by both her shoulders and plants her firmly in front of him.

"I know you think I'm scared to make you mad, Evans, but that was a long time ago, okay?" He looks more frustrated than she's ever seen him before, his hair standing up awkwardly. His cheeks are pink, and his body is radiating anger, like a loaded spring waiting to release at any moment. Lily lets out a long breath, and then—

"I think we should just stop this."

His eyes go wide. "Stop what?"

"This!" She gestures between them. "It's clear Hestia wants you back, right? She looked _really_ upset this morning. So go get her and then—"

" _No way!"_ he exclaims. "You're just trying to get out of the Stonehenge plan we made! The fight!"

"Who needs a fake fight when we have a real fight happening _right bloody now?!"_ Lily whispers.

"This isn't even about that! This is about Snape and—"

"Why don't _you_ go ahead and tell McGonagall or Dumbledore about Snape if it's so important to you?"

He blushes now, and Lily can tell he's embarrassed. "They—" He clears his throat. "They won't believe me. They'll think I'm still holding a grudge."

Lily crosses her arms. "Aren't you?"

He's absolutely _fuming_ at this point, and Lily feels a swell of something like sorrow well up inside her. Is she…sad that they're fighting? Actually fighting about something important? They've fought a hundred times before, but something here feels different, like an ancient and decaying wall finally collapsing between them.

He looks down at her, and she has to tilt her head back to look at him. "I'm not," he says flatly.

"Well, I'm not doing this to get out of Stonehenge!" Lily asserts fiercely. "I'm doing this because you're driving me bloody mad."

"Back at you!"

"We only said we'd do Stonehenge if we were still together, and—"

"And we _are_ still together! You're just trying to cancel because you're scared."

"Scared of what, exactly?" she snaps.

He holds his hands out in front of him, a gesture of surrender. "You tell me, Evans."

Lily bites her lip, dropping her gaze. _How do you tell your fake boyfriend that you can't be around him anymore because you're having real, honest-to-god feelings?_

* * *

The day drags on, and Lily replays her and James's argument over and over again in her head. They hadn't ended agreeing on a single thing because the bell had rung. She sees him throughout the day, and she's determined to ignore him after their tense morning. But she learns quickly that she doesn't need to ignore James because he's putting in extra work ignoring her.

They work in silence during Potions, James passing Lily ingredients as she diligently works on their Veritaserum, adding in the correct measurement of unicorn horn. When the bell rings, James gathers his things and leaves with his mates, leaving a very confused Mary, Marlene, and to Lily's surprise, Sirius, to wait for Lily, who shrugs off James's departure and, claiming homework, spends her lunch period in the library with her Transfiguration proofs.

By the time the final bell rings, Lily is exhausted. Her mind has been completely preoccupied with James all day, and all she wants is to go up to her dormitory and put it all in her journal. She thinks that she could write for days, pouring every single thought onto the blank pages of the black covered journal, and she would need another book and maybe another, but then she could get it all out and maybe go down to dinner feeling some semblance of normal.

Feigning a headache, she leaves Mary and Marlene to go to Dueling Club together, and Lily climbs the steps to Gryffindor Tower with her mind elsewhere. _James Potter,_ she fumes. _Always thinking he's above the rules. Severus was right about him. Strutting around this place like he owns it, and—_

She pushes open the door to the dormitory, eager to throw down her bag and kick off her shoes, but the sight she sees stops her in her tracks.

Hestia is sitting on her own bed, her legs dangling off the edge, her face buried in her hands. And she's crying. When Lily enters, Hestia leaps up, her face filling with horror when she spots Lily's distinctive red curls. Lily's mouth drops open.

"What—what are you doing here?" she croaks.

"I—er—I was just—"

"Come here to gloat, have you?" Hestia says nastily, and Lily takes a step backward, feeling her temper flare.

"I didn't even know you were in here," Lily replies hotly. "How could I have?"

"It's _my_ dormitory."

"I live here, too, or have to failed to notice that over the last six years?" Lily stares at Hestia now, whose blotchy face and red eyes remind Lily so much of her own blotchy face and red rimmed eyes the day that Hestia had finally, finally ditched Lily.

Hestia scowls at Lily, her eyes no longer crying but blazing. Lily scowls right back at her, and she realizes something: she's no longer scared of Hestia. She's not afraid of her rage or her temper. They are perfectly evenly matched.

"Can you just leave me alone?" Hestia snarls.

"Your wish is my command," Lily replies airily, dumping her bag beside her bed and yanking off her shoes, tossing them next to her bag. She strides across the room to her wardrobe, pulling it open and rifling through it for her school cardigan.

"You know, I never thought you'd actually do it," Hestia says from across the room.

Lily releases a frustrated sigh. "I thought you wanted me to leave you alone, Hestia," she says angrily, but her curiosity is piqued. "Do what?"

"Go after him. You always knew you could have him, didn't you?"

Lily feels the blood drain from her face. She whirls around from the wardrobe, and her face is an ugly mess of rage. "Well, _you_ certainly didn't want him anymore. What do you care now that you've moved on to bigger and better and _older_ things?"

Hestia pales, but she plows ahead with her diatribe. "I always knew exactly who you were, Lily Evans," she snarls. "Innocent little Evans, right? Please. I never bought that little act. And then you _stole_ my _boyfriend_."

"There's nothing to steal if you've already dumped him, Hestia," Lily says dully. "Surely you understand the logistics of how one steals another's boyfriend."

"Everyone saw your little display in the Potions dungeon, when you snogged James and we hadn't even been broken up for a week!" Hestia lobs this accusation with ease, and Lily knows she's been thinking about this since the day Lily had kissed James in the dungeons in front of everyone. A ripple of satisfaction courses through Lily's veins.

"But you were broken up, right?" Lily tilts her head at Hestia condescendingly. "So you see how that doesn't mean anything?"

Hestia's eyes narrow now, and she looks less like a girl who had been crying on her bed just moments ago and more like a snake ready to strike at any minute. "Just remember, little Lily," Hestia drawls now, her words coming out long and ugly. "For every first you're having with him, he's already had his." She pauses. "With me."

Without another word, Hestia turns on her heel and departs, her chin in the air. Lily stares at the heavy wooden door for a moment, then reaches down, grabs her shoe, and lobs it at the door with a resounding, "FUCK!" Her chest heaves as she flings herself into her bed and buries her face in her hands. Her mind is reeling. On one hand, she should tell James that Hestia was in here crying about him. _That is what she was crying about, right?_ Lily wonders.

On the other hand, if James knew exactly how upset Hestia was, maybe he _would_ take her up on her offer from that morning to break up. _But what's wrong with that?_ Says a nasty voice inside Lily's head. Doesn't Lily _want_ James to break it off? It's fake, right? They haven't kissed since the Quidditch match, and today they had a fight not unlike their fights before Potter had chosen to do a complete about face and change literally every single part of his personality. _He doesn't like you anymore_ , Lily reminds herself, collapsing into her pillows and burying her face into them.

She's not sure how long she's there or even if she's entirely awake the whole time, but she finds herself being roused by Marlene and Mary, both wearing very concerned looks on their faces.

"Are you alright, Lils?" Marlene asks with a gentleness that surprises Lily.

"Does your head still hurt?" Mary's brow is furrowed with worry.

Lily raises her head from her pillows, and Marlene laughs. "You should see your hair, Lils!" Mary bites back a smile as Lily raises a hand to her hair, smoothing her palm over her curls.

"I'm fine," Lily murmurs, her stomach giving a huge growl.

Mary smiles. "Want to go to dinner?"

Lily gives her friends a grateful look, sliding off her bed, and looking down at her wrinkled uniform. With a sigh, she falls right back down on the bed, saying, "I don't think I can go anywhere."

The bed shifts, and then Mary and Marlene are lying next to Lily on the bed.

"Lil, what's really going on?" Mary prods gently.

To her surprise, tears prick Lily's eyes, and she's horrified to discover one sliding out of her eye and disappearing into her hair.

"Is this about your fight with James this morning?" Marlene's voice is soft as she shifts next to Lily.

Another teardrop flows into Lily's curls, and she closes her eyes. She can't _possibly_ tell them about the fight without telling them about all the other things, but she finds herself nodding, murmuring, "Yes." She turns her head to look into Marlene's eyes.

"Want to tell me what it was about?"

For a moment, Lily blurts it all out. _There was another journal, about Severus, and he got it,_ she'd say. _I don't know how, but he got it, and then I kissed James. And we made a deal. And now it's a mess because I like him. I actually like him, but here's the joke: he doesn't like me back! He's still head over heels for Hestia and—_

"Lily?" Mary says, sitting up now. "Do you want to tell us what you and James fought about?"

But true to form, Lily shakes her head. _She can't tell them because they would take James's side_ , she reasons. They had never liked Severus even before he'd called her an unforgiveable name. "He's creepy," Mary had said.

"Why is he always with Avery and Mulciber?" Marlene had asked. "Doesn't he know the Averys and Mulcibers are deep into the Dark Arts?"

They'd want Lily to tell Dumbledore what she saw in Hogsmeade at the Hog's Head. Mary and Marlene had never understood why Lily had been friends with Severus, and they wouldn't understand now why she didn't want to tell anyone about how she saw Severus Snape and Avery and Mulciber meeting with Lucius Malfoy. Marlene would certainly have a litany of abuse for the Slytherin students and might even have some insight from her Auror parents about Lucius Malfoy being a no good, rotten-to-the-core Pureblood supremacist who wanted to see all Muggleborns thrown into volcanoes. She'd rail against Snape, how he'd hurt Lily and how he wanted to harm others like her and Mary and how could he stand upright when he has no spine whatsoever?

Lily had seen this from Marlene before, and she had tried to explain it once. Her connection to Severus. _He told me who I was,_ she'd said. _Who I really was._ Lily knows that Severus would never let harm come to her. She knows that even if he's a Death Eater, their bond is too strong. Their connection goes too deep. Even if she isn't in love with him anymore, it doesn't mean she doesn't _love_ who he was. She still remembers the little boy in the too big coat with the shouting father and the frail mother. She remembers how much he'd given her, and she knows without a single doubt that no matter how long they both live, they'll be ingrained in one another's souls forever.

But she can't tell her friends that. They wouldn't understand. They would understand James, though. His moral clarity was just that—clear and easy to understand. Severus was a Slytherin. He was probably a Death Eater. Of course they should go to Dumbledore.

"It's nothing," Lily replies abruptly, sitting up and wiping her eyes. "Just something stupid that he did, as always." She tries to roll her eyes to indicate that she's just annoyed, that her tears were just a fluke.

She can feel Mary and Marlene exchange looks as they get up.

"Are you sure you don't want to tell us?" Mary asks, standing up now and plucking a piece of lint from her sleeve.

"No, but—" And now Lily smiles. "Have either of you seen my cardigan?"

Mystified, they both shake their heads.

* * *

"Evans."

Lily looks up from her Transfiguration proofs at the sound of her name. She's back in her usual spot in the library, struggling through another night of having to explain _why_ a human can turn into a cat. Only now James is here, towering over her where she's seated under the kneeling knight.

She sighs. "Potter, please, not now," she pleads. "I really need to get this done before McGonagall fails me, and I can't be an Auror. I can't argue with you right now, I haven't got the time."

"Make time."

"What part of 'I'm going to fail Transfiguration and all my career dreams will be dashed if that happens' isn't clicking for you, Potter? I want to get this done before the weekend so I can practice my Patronus Charm with Mary and Marlene."

He looks at her with an intensity that makes her stomach swirl, and then pulls up a chair next to her. "Let's see your work then."

She blinks. "What?"

" _Let—me—help—you."_

"Mary's helping me."

James turns his head from side to side, then looks at Lily. "Evans, is Mary here in the library with us? No. It's Friday night so she's probably doing something fun."

"Oh, shut up!" Lily replies bitterly, but she hands her homework over. He takes them from her, smoothing the parchment on the desk and looking critically at her work.

"Your work is on the right track," he says, still peering at the parchment covered in Lily's looping penmanship. "But your answers are wrong."

"Which answers?"

"For numbers three, eight, and twelve." He pauses, his eyes skimming over the page. "Yes, you see, you've forgotten to show the value of this angle—" He points. "And that's why your calculations are wrong." With a satisfied smile, he returns Lily's parchment to her as she stares at it once again. Her head swims with numbers, but she presses the parchment down, picks up her quill, and leans down to write down the incomprehensible numbers.

After a few moments of silence broken only by the scratching of Lily's quill, she leans back in her chair with a sigh. "I think I got it." She glances at James who is fiddling with the Snitch he's been carrying for years, letting it go and catching it before it gets too far. Without a word, he takes her parchment, reviewing her work.

"Hey, nice work, Evans!" he says. "But twelve is still wrong."

She sputters with frustration. "How am I doing to do on my N.E.W.T.s if I can't even get it right now?"

"Relax." He smiles, and her stomach swirls again. "N.E.W.T.s are months from now! Look here—you got the value of the angle, but it's just your calculation that's wrong."

She stares at where he's pointing on the paper. "Oh!" She knows. "Okay, so it's 190 then!"

"That's right!"

She smiles widely, writing the correct answer down, and then tossing the parchment down. "I hope I never have to do any of this at the Auror Academy," she says feverishly, running her hand through her hair, an annoying habit that she suspects she's picked up from spending so much time with James.

He laughs. "Evans, we'll be taking exams for _years_ at the academy!"

She frowns. "That's not what Marlene's parents have said," she replies. "They told us both that they take lots of exams for the first year, and then it's all practical application and research."

His brow furrows. "Hm, well, I must have wrong information then because I hear you have to take exam after exam for three years."

"I'm fine with all exams except Transfiguration," Lily says, stretching her arms over her head. "I just can't seem to get it."

"You're usually fine in class," James remarks, his fingers closing around the Snitch as it flits around his dark hair.

She waves her hand. "Oh, I'm fine at the actual spellwork. It's the bloody maths that gets me. Why do I need to _prove_ why a spell works?"

He laughs again, and Merlin, she likes his dumb laugh so much that it makes her laugh. "It's mostly for spell reversal," he explains. "It's kind of like, if you can transfigure a mouse into –" His eyes blank for a moment, searching for a word.

"A sock?"

"Thank you. If you transfigure a mouse into a sock, you'll likely eventually want to turn it back into a mouse."

"Okay…"

"So you'll want to understand the shape of the spell," he says. "Once you understand that, you can do the calculations backward to get the counterspell."

She stares at him. "But why would I transfigure something if I don't already know the counterspell?"

"It's not for something you've transfigured, but if someone, for example, transfigures a person into an object."

"Why would anyone do that?"

He raises his eyebrows. "Do you really want me to tell you?"

Her stomach lurches now, and she shakes her head. "No, I want to keep my dinner down." She pauses. "Are you excited to go to the academy?"

He nods. "Yeah, of course. I want to be the best. Maybe Mad Eye Moody will train me, and—"

"He doesn't really do much training anymore," Lily interrupts. James stares at her, and she blushes. "Well, that's at least what Marlene's parents told me."

He huffs. "They seem to tell you an awful lot."

"Well, they know I'm going to be an Auror. And I ask them a lot of questions. I've been with Marlene for the last few holiday breaks."

"What else have they told you?" he asks, and as he seems genuinely curious, she takes a deep breath and plows onward.

"On your first day, you go with the rest of the class to this weird room in the Department of Mysteries where they give you a long talk about the responsibilities of the academy, of what it means to be an Auror. And then you sign the pledge book."

"Pledge book?"

She gestures widely. "Yeah, like each page has the Auror pledge that you repeat and sign to commit yourself to doing your best and not using your power to harm others."

"Is it magical?"

"What do you mean?" She tilts her head. "It's _all_ magical."

"You _know_ what I mean. Is it like taking the Unbreakable Vow?"

Lily shakes her head. "I don't think so. It's more like…" She pauses. "A promise that you make to yourself."

"A promise that you make to yourself," he repeats. "I like that."

She smiles at him, forgetting for a moment that they'd argued just yesterday. "Well, that's how Marlene's parents have described it anyway." She inadvertently blushes, and tears her eyes from his, returning her gaze to her Transfiguration homework.

"What's McKinnon doing after school?" James asks after an awkward pause.

"Hasn't Sirius already told you?" she teases.

James grins roguishly. "That's not really what we talk about when we talk about McKinnon, Evans."

Lily's face contorts in confusion, and then she realizes _precisely_ what he means. "Oh, gross, Potter!" She tosses a crumpled up piece of parchment at him that he catches easily, his arm coming up gracefully to snatch it before it hits him and tossing it back at her. She ducks as it sails over her head.

"You better be careful," James teases. "Bollier hates when people make trouble in the library."

"And you'd know, would you?"

"Ask me no questions and I shall tell you no lies, Evans." He leans back in his chair so he's balancing on two the two rear legs, and she notices once again how positively carefree he looks.

"You know the Academy takes disciplinary records into account, right?" Lily says, standing up and beginning to gather her things.

"Me being Head Boy should remedy that that right up," he says, rising alongside her. "Evans, just wait one second—" His fingers stow the Snitch into the pocket of his trousers and find their way to Lily's arm, grasping her elbow, his hand firm and warm around the sleeve of her navy blue jumper.

She closes her eyes for a flash, relishing the touch, then slides her gaze to his face. "I don't want to fight with you anymore about this," she whispers, her eyes pleading. "I can't anymore. Please. I'm so tired."

Something stirs in his eyes. Behind his glasses, he's working something out. Lily can see the cogs churning in his brain, and for a moment, he looks as if he's going to protest again, to make her talk to him, to try to convince her again. His mouth opens, closes, opens, and then closes for a final time. "Fine," he says, dropping his gaze. "Fine. I'll leave it alone."

She releases a sigh of relief, turning her attention back toward her things, when James speaks again. "So you're in for tomorrow, right?"

"Tomorrow?" she asks, pulling her bag over her shoulder as they cross the library to leave.

"Didn't you read my note? I asked the lads if it was alright to show you one of the secret passages to Hogsmeade. I mean, if you still want to do that, I guess." He shoves his hands in his pockets, looking down at his feet.

"You have to _ask_ them?" Lily muses.

"You know you don't _always_ have to give me a hard time," he grouses. "You could just say yes or no or even, hm, I dunno, read my note that I went to great lengths to give to you."

It's only at this moment that Lily remembers her run-in with Hestia. She should tell James about the note and the impact it made on his ex-girlfriend. Right? She should tell him that Hestia was crying in their dormitory, that she wants James back, and that Lily had taunted her. But something inside Lily hesitates, a small something that grows larger by the second as she and James weave the familiar route back to Gryffindor Tower, him chattering about his Quidditch practices over the weekend and Lily occasionally assenting, her mind far from the conversation.

When they say goodbye in the common room, James leans in to place a light kiss on Lily's cheek that makes her stomach do a little flip. No, she wouldn't tell him about Hestia after all.

She mounts the steps up to her dormitory, taking a deep breath at the door to compose herself. She can't go in grinning like an idiot—they'll all know exactly what she's grinning about, and then it will be even more humiliating when she and James break it off for him to get back together with Hestia.

With a massive effort, she tries to arrange her face so she wears a neutral expression, and taking a deep breath, pushes open the door to the dormitory.

"Lily!" Marlene shrieks. "Shut the door before someone sees!"

"What the—" Lily blurts out, looking around the dormitory at what's happening inside. Standing in front of the tall mirror that all the girls share stands Marlene, wearing what is possibly the smallest bikini Lily has ever seen. Next to her, Mary is modeling something similar but in black instead of blue. From her bed, Alice is watching in amusement. Hestia is nowhere to be seen.

"What are those?!" Lily asks, crossing the room to drop her bag down and remove her shoes, her eyes fixed on her friends.

"A swimsuit of course," Marlene says airily, going to her bed to rifle through a shopping bag that looks to be from a shop in Diagon Alley. "Here, I got you one."

She tosses two scraps of fabric at Lily's head, who ducks as they land with a soft _flump_ noise next to her. Gingerly, she reaches out to pick one up.

"Marlene, _why_ do I need a swimsuit exactly?" Lily asks, smoothing out the bikini top and bottom on top of her duvet. They're made of stretchy, buttery material in a gorgeous forest green color, a color that Lily tends to favor. Marlene's attention to detail is, as always, impeccable.

"For the school trip, of course," Marlene says from the mirror, turning to examine her arse. "Hm, I don't know about this one." She turns to Mary. "Maybe I should try the pink again?"

"What do you mean, for the school trip?" Lily blurts out, her heart beginning a tattoo against her ribs.

"There's a hot spring," Alice says from her bed, half-heartedly flipping through _Witch Weekly_ as she watches. "It's underground, and it's open to all the students on the trip."

"But Stonehenge is landlocked," Lily replies, her eyes flitting rapidly between Alice and Marlene.

"It's at the inn, silly," Mary says. "Where we're all staying. They made it just for guests. It's magic."

Lily's eyes widen. "Well…I'm not going in."

"Lily." Marlene turns. "You have to."

Lily rolls onto her back, waving her hand in a careless sort of way, and says, "Why? It can't possibly be _mandatory_ that I have to put on a silly bikini and mess around with you all on the school trip that we take for _educational purposes._ "

Mary giggles. "Yes, Lily, we're all going for the _education_ and certainly not for the opportunity to get away from this drafty castle and fool around with boys."

Lily stares at Mary.

"Lily, it's basically a _hot tub_ ," Mary says slowly, as if Lily is having trouble understanding.

"Put the swimsuit on, Lily," Marlene orders from the mirror.

"Marlene—" Lily starts to protest, but a dangerous glance from Marlene shuts her up. Dutifully, she picks up the two pieces and shows herself to the loo, where she strips off her school clothes and tugs on the dark green bikini. Tying the top at the nape of her neck, she turns to the mirror to look at herself. With a critical eye, she surveys her body, and to her pleasant surprise, she can find very little wrong. _Marlene got the right size,_ she thinks, shaking her curls out so they fall over her shoulders, the dark red tresses framing her face.

She pulls the door open and strolls back into the dormitory, trying not to hunch over or hide her body.

"Oh, Merlin," Marlene says when she sees Lily. "Potter's in deep trouble when he sees you looking like that." She turns to Mary. "I knew the dark green was right!"

"Marlene, don't you have a one piece that I could wear?" Lily asks, attempting to keep the panic out of her voice. "I don't think the Head Girl should wear a bikini like this in front of our entire class and—"

"I thought you weren't going in?" Mary remarks slyly from where she's now lying, bikini-clad, on her bed. Lily shoots a death glare in Mary's direction, whipping her head back to face Marlene.

"Mar?"

Marlene shakes her head, collapsing onto Lily's bed. "Sorry, Lils. That's the only one I have."

"I don't—" Lily says haltingly.

"It's going to be fun!" Marlene says. "Don't overthink it."

Something dawns on Lily. "This is what Sirius meant the other night, right?" she asks. "When he said—it was nothing that I wouldn't see—"

Marlene's cheeks turn a very becoming pink as she nods. "Yes, of course," she says. "It'll be _fun_ , Lils! Remember fun?"

"I'm very fun!" Lily snaps, turning to return to the loo. "I'm _so_ bloody fun!"

"That's the spirit!" Mary calls out as Lily slams the loo door shut.

* * *

The fire in the Gryffindor common room burns low as Lily creeps down the stone steps, her boots in her hand. James's note had been brief, but prescriptive. _Meet me in the common room on Saturday night. Eleven. Dress warm. James._ Not one to favor style over comfort, Lily had done as instructed. She had layered two shirts under her jumper, worn stockings under her wool trousers, and donned two pairs of socks on her feet, which now settle into the plush rug in front of the hearth as Lily crouches down, holding her hands out to the dying embers, seeking warmth

She isn't quite sure what she's doing here. She abhors breaking rules, and unlike James Potter, she's earned her Head Girl title. She hasn't _ever_ crept about the castle after curfew unless it was for prefect duties—with the obvious exception of the Halloween party-, and she certainly hadn't found ways to leave the carefully guarded castle to wander about Hogsmeade in the dark. But tonight feels different because she'll be with James, who _knows_ this castle, who has plundered the castle's secrets so deeply that she couldn't even fathom the depth of his knowledge.

With a soft sigh, she sits back on the rug, pulling on and tying her boots, then standing up to look around the common room. It's currently deserted after Potter had cleared it off earlier in the evening, even going so far as to send the Marauders on their way to their dorms. "And don't let me catch you out here after hours again!" he'd said warningly to Sirius and Marlene, who were so deeply wrapped around one another that Lily was certain they hadn't heard him. But Lily knew that Marlene was currently fast asleep in her four-poster upstairs. The periphery of the circular room is still, except—

"Evans," says a low voice, making Lily jump.

"Christ!" Lily hisses, turning to face James.

He raises an eyebrow. "Weren't you expecting me?" he asks, nearly whispering.

"Yes, but—" She gestures at him. "You crept up on me!"

He shakes his head, smiling lightly as he pulls a wool cap over his head. With a small shake, he gives Lily a critical once over, his eyes trailing over her jumper, down her legs, and back up to meet her bright emerald eyes. "Are you warm enough?"

She nods. "Yes, I'm wearing several layers."

"Well, you'll need a hat," he says. "Don't want you catching cold."

"The only hat I have is my Gryffindor one, and I didn't bring it because it'll stand out—"

"Don't worry about it," he says, pulling a matching wool cap out of his coat pocket. With a swift advance, he's in front of her now, and without warning, he reaches forward to pull the hat on her head, his hands briefly becoming entangled in her curls as he moves her hair forward so the locks cascade over her shoulders. Her heart skips a beat as her looks down at her, a strange look on his face, and then the moment is over as he takes a step back. "You ready?" he asks.

"Er, yeah, I suppose," she says.

"You know, I had to pull a lot of strings for the lads to even let me do this, so if you don't want to, it'll get me out of a hell of a lot of favors I owe."

"What kind of favors?" she asks as he pushes open the Fat Lady's portrait, hopping down gracefully and holding out a gloved hand for her. She put her own gloved hand in his, bouncing down next to him. They start to make their way down the darkened corridor.

He glanced sidelong at her. "Well, I told Sirius I'd give him and Marlene some, ah, alone time on the school trip," he says, and Lily thinks she sees the color rise in his cheeks.

" _What?"_

"Shh!" he says. "We may be the Heads, Evans, but I still don't want to be caught before I can show you Hogsmeade."

"I've already seen Hogsmeade, Potter," Lily replies teasingly. "Remember, we were there together just last weekend?"

"Yeah, yeah," he grunts. "But still, I owe Moony and Wormtail favors, too, so if you really don't want to do this—"

"No, I do!" Lily replies more quickly than she would have liked. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"So you are."

They walk down three flights of stairs in silence, James beckoning Lily down a corridor that's lit with a single flaming torch. Lily follows in his wake, her eyes and ears more alert than they've ever been. They haven't been walking for more than a minute when, with a rapid motion, James's hand closes around Lily's wrist and he pulls her into an alcove.

"Wha—" she says as he crowds her into the alcove, her back pressing against the hard stone wall. He puts a finger up to his lips, silencing her, his eyes wild and urgent. With one hand, he waves his wand, and Lily watches a glamour erupt behind him, hiding them completely while giving Lily a perfect view down the corridor where she catches a glimpse of two bright yellow eyes making their way down the corridor. _Mrs. Norris,_ she thinks, recognizing the school caretaker's strange cat.

"Mrs. Norris!" she mouths at him.

"I know!" he mouths back. She smells his toothpaste and oranges again, realizing with a plunging sensation in her chest how close he is to her. His hands are laced around her upper arms, and her fingers have inadvertently traveled to his chest, where his coat is bunched up in her fists. She can _hear_ his heart hammering—or is that her own thrashing heartbeat? Their chests rise and fall in unison, their combined panic becoming something quite different as the frantic fear in both their faces falls away to be replaced by a stare so fierce that Lily couldn't look away, not even for a brief second as Mrs. Norris sniffed around James's glamoured ankles.

James's hands slide down Lily's arms, cupping her elbows for one searing second, before they land directly on top of her own hands. A bolt of heat flashes through Lily's body, settling low in her stomach as James's fingers wrap themselves around her clenched knuckles. For a moment, she wants to just lean forward and kiss him, here where no one could see them, and that would be her way of telling him everything inside of her. A searing, private kiss that would _maybe_ , just maybe, make him forget Hestia entirely.

But now he's disentangling her hands from his coat, waving away the glamour, and taking a step back to peer back and forth before saying, "Okay. She's gone."

A cold wave of disappointment extinguishes the fire that had been raging inside her. She ensures her face doesn't betray her frustration as she follows him a little way down the corridor before he halts in front of an ancient statue of a one-eyed witch. "This is it," he says, grinning at Lily. "You ready, Evans?"

She looked from the statue to James and back again. "This is…what?" She's passed the statue a number of times in the past, on her way down to the dungeons or to Transfiguration on the same floor. She's never given it a second thought, but the way James is smiling at her, there is more than meets the eye about the one-eyed witch.

He creeps behind the statue, squeezing himself between the statue and the wall. Lily follows suit on his other side, watching as he taps the witch's hump with his wand, his eyes focused and intent on the task. To Lily's astonishment, the witch's hump creaks open to reveal an opening. "Lumos," she whispers, and her wand alights. She points the light into where the hump used to be, and has to bite back a cry. Inside, there is a long slide that seems to level off at the bottom into an underground tunnel.

"Where does it go?" she whispers to James, who is nodding encouragingly at her.

"Let's find out, shall we?" he says, squatting down and linking his fingers together, indicating that she should step into his hand. Slipping her wand into her pocket, she grasps the edges of the opening, steps into James's waiting hands and heaves herself up. With a clumsy scramble, she lowers her legs inside the hole, balancing on the lip of the opening.

"Is it safe?" The question slips from her lips.

He tilts his head. "You're never going to trust me, are you Evans?"

"Answer the question, Potter," she says through clenched teeth.

He places his hand on his chest, over his heart, and replies, "I'd never let anything bad happen to you, Evans. On my honor."

"What honor?" she mutters, but with a deep breath, she pushes herself off the edge and slides a short way down before she stumbles into a long, dark tunnel. From behind her, she hears James's heaving himself up, and a short moment later, he's standing next to her.

"Well, Evans," he says, brushing off his trousers. "Now you know how the Marauders get into Hogsmeade."

She grins. "Glad to be among your troublemaker pals, Potter," she says with a smile, pointing her wand down the tunnel. "Where does this go?"

"Good thing comes to those who wait, Evans," James says, starting down the tunnel. "Come on."

The tunnel is straight with a low ceiling and a dirt floor. Lily shines her wandlight down on the ground and sees hundreds if not thousands of footprints on the path, confirming her suspicion that James and his friends use this tunnel with regularity. They walk at a comfortable pace, Lily holding her wand out to keep their path lighted. James chatters next to her, telling her how they discovered this tunnel (by talking to a portrait next to the tunnel). When Lily asks how he's certain no one else knows about the tunnel, he goes silent and refuses to elaborate further until she lets it go.

Finally, after what seems like a full hour, he stops. "Are you ready for this?" he asks with a huge smile on his face. Lily hasn't seen him this excited since their Quidditch lesson a few weeks ago. He gestures toward a trapdoor over their heads, and Lily looks up, her mouth opening in surprise. He reaches up, pushing the trapdoor open, and with a small creak, it opens. With a graceful leap, he lifts himself upward. His untidy head disappears briefly, and then it's back, his hand reaching down to help Lily up and through. She rolls onto the floor, the impact knocking her to her rear. With a small push, she rises, peering around.

The room is dark, but her wand alights on a crate that reads _Bertie Bott's_. Her mouth falls open again. "Potter," she breathes. "Are we inside _Honeyduke's?"_

His smile widens, something Lily wasn't sure was even possible the way he had already been beaming. "Welcome to the Honeyduke's cellar, Evans."

"Oh, Merlin!" Lily cries as he shoots a silencing look at her. "We've _broken in_ to a business, Potter. I'm a bloody _criminal_."

He laughs, a sound that would normally please her, but it infuriates her. "You're not a criminal, Lily," he says assuringly. "We're not going to _steal_ anything."

"The shop is closed!" she says tersely. "And we're here after hours, when it's closed! If someone were here, they would call the Aurors on us. And then we wouldn't get into the academy and then-"

"They would not!" he says. "They know me. They're close with my parents and—"

"Ah, well! I'm glad you'll be alright then."

He makes a motion like he wants to reach for her, but then drops his arms, shoving his hands into his coat pockets. "Do you trust me, Evans?"

It's the second time tonight that he's brought it up, her trusting him. Does she trust him? She looks at him in the dark, the light from her wand making his glasses glint. His mouth is cocked into a half-smile, his eyes looking down at her with a question in them. Yes, she trusts him. Of course she does. But she doesn't say yes or even assent that she does. Instead, she says, "Do I have a choice?"

"That's the spirit, Evans. Now, let's get out of here."

They cross the cellar and climb into Honeyduke's. The store is eerie after dark, and Lily is grateful when James leads her out onto Hogmeade's High Street. To her surprise, the village is bustling. There's a small crowd outside the Three Broomsticks, and through the windows, Lily can see that the inside of the pub is quite busy as well. The other shops are closed, but Lily can see lights above them and shapes moving around inside.

"Who are all these people?" she asks James as he finishes locking Honeyduke's door behind him.

He looks around. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I'm only here when it's mainly Hogwarts students." She gestures toward a group of men who are now leaving the Three Broomsticks, making their way up the street to—Lily presumes—the Hog's Head.

"It's Saturday night in the most magical village in Britain," James replies. "It's a party, Evans."

Worry lances through Lily. "What if we're seen by a professor?" she asks.

It's clear from his expression that this thought hadn't occurred to him. "We'll be careful," he says to her reassuringly. "I've never seen a professor here except on Hogwarts weekends."

Lily looks at him skeptically, but he steps into the road, swiveling his head to look at something. Lily follows his gaze. The sight takes her breath away.

Hogwarts Castle towers over the village. The pale half moon glints off the turrets and towers, and the lights in the windows twinkle like warm yellow stars off in the distance. Lily smiles at the sight, thinking about Mary and Marlene and wishing they were here. "Oh," she says softly.

"It's nice, right?" He's looking at her. Has he been looking at her this whole time?

"It's _beautiful,"_ she whispers, tearing her eyes from the castle to meet James's eyes. "We live there!"

He laughs. "We do."

She turns her head to scan the village. "How lovely this is." She looks at James. "Thank you for bringing me here."

A thunderbolt of surprise crosses his face. "You're welcome, Evans. If I'd known you'd love it here, I would have brought you here years ago."

She snorts. "Yes, years ago, when we were the best of friends."

He ducks his head, trying to hide a wide smile, but Lily sees him and feels a small flutter in her chest. _Fucking hell, Lily_ , she thinks, watching him. _Get a grip!_

"Want to get a drink?" he asks her, gesturing toward the Three Broomsticks.

"Sure," she replies. "But if we see even _one_ professor or _anyone_ else from the school, we leave. Agreed?"

He considers her, then nods in agreement. "Agreed, Evans."

The Three Broomsticks is lively with the tables filled with groups of witches and wizards that Lily doesn't recognize. A third scan of the crowd confirms her suspicions: there isn't a Hogwarts staff member at this pub tonight. With this knowledge, Lily suddenly feels a thrill course through her veins. She's in Hogsmeade! After curfew! With a _boy_! She's _breaking rules!_

They cross the pub, taking two seats at the bar, where James orders them drinks. Lily pulls off her hat, shaking her curls out, and propping her elbows on the bar, unable to contain her excitement. "This is—" She glanced over at James, his face gazing at her in amusement. "—so cool."

He laughs, throwing his head back, his Adam's apple bobbing. The sound sends a shiver of pleasure down her spine. She likes making him laugh, even when she doesn't intend to do it. It gives her a feeling quite unlike any other that she's ever experienced, like she can see herself making him laugh for years to come and it giving her a kind of tangible joy that nothing else in her life has yet given her. She rarely made Severus laugh, him being the kind of person who didn't laugh easily. When he did laugh, it was often at the expense of someone else, and Lily would laugh awkwardly next to him, pretending to find the same things funny. But when James laughs, Lily can feel it down to her very core. He's not laughing _at_ her; her astonishment with the Three Broomsticks after dark brings him joy. _She_ brings him joy. This realization burrows itself inside her brain, and it nearly takes her breath away.

The fact is that the Three Broomsticks after hours _is_ quite cool. The pub is lit dimly from the fire in the hearth and twinkling lights that float over their heads. In the corner, a trio of casually dressed musicians plays soft music that tinkles through the pub. There are people here on dates, Lily realizes, seeing a young couple in the corner glancing shyly at one another over their meal. Everything is so different from when she's here with hordes of Hogwarts students clamoring for more butterbeer, fighting over seats, playing Exploding Snap at the little tables, and gorging themselves on sweets from the shops.

"It's pretty nice here," James says, glancing away from Lily to wink at Rosemerta as she plops down their drinks. "Without the packs of annoying third years jostling everyone all the time." Lily looks at her glass, a coupe on a thin crystal stem, containing a pale amber liquid with a twist of lime in it.

"What's this?" she asks.

"Try it," James says, taking a long drink of his own drink, a slightly smoking glass of something orangey.

She lifts the glass, brings it to her lips, and takes a small sip. To her great surprise, the drink isn't bitter like she expected it to be. It's slightly sweet and dry, and leaves her whole body tingling slightly. She nods to him, his eyes looking at her with his inquiry in them. "It's good," she reassures him. "What is it?"

"It's a gillywater," he says. He leans forward so his face is just an inch from hers. She leans back a little, his orangey, minty, and now smoky smell becoming a little too heady for her. "There's a rumor that Rosmerta puts just a dash of Felix Felicis in it."

Lily's eyes widen. "Isn't that illegal?" she asks. "What if someone's going to take an exam or play Quidditch or—"

He laughs again at her serious expression, and when she realizes he's joking, she presses her lips together, taking another sip of the fizzy gillywater. Clearing her throat, she says, "Speaking of potions—"

James groans. "Are you really going to talk about school?"

"I just want to talk about our project and then we can talk about whatever else you want!" Lily smiles as she says this, letting him know that she's a woman of her word. She clears her throat again. "I think we should go to the dungeon and make sure it's right. It seems fine from when we're in class, but I wonder if going down one night this week to test it makes sense."

He shrugs. "Makes sense to me." A pause. "Is school talk over?"

"It _can_ be if you want," she relents.

"Well, then I decree school talk to be over!" he says, smacking the top of the bar to punctuate his point. Lily laughs, tossing her head back, her chin bobbing in the air.

"Fine, fine!" She shakes her head. "No more school talk! I promise."

"Perfect." James smiles at her over his glass. The fluttering in her chest is back. Blast.

"So…how often do you do this?" Lily asks.

"Do what?"

" _This."_ She gestures around them. "Sneak out of the castle to get drunk."

He sets his glass down, pressing his palms into his knees . "I'm not drunk. Are _you_ drunk?"

She chuckles. "Okay, okay! To _drink."_

"It gets old after a while."

"After a while?!" She gapes at him, her jaw dropping slightly. "Since when have you been sneaking out here?"

He has the decency to look ashamed as his eyes drop to his lap and back up to Lily's face in rapid succession. "I—" He stops for a moment, his brown eyes locked onto Lily's green ones. She feels a ripple of something between them as he takes a deep breath and licks his lips. "The truth?"

"The truth," Lily replies.

"We've been sneaking out since third year."

Lily's eyes widen. "Third year?!" she cries in a loud, carrying whisper.

He winces and nods. "We just…were bored a lot. It was pretty easy once you find one way out."

"How on earth have you never been caught?"

"I'm just very, very good at evading Filch," he replies with an impish grin. She sighs, but she's smiling.

"I'm jealous, Potter."

He gawps at her. "Jealous? You? _Of me?"_

"Yes, of you!" She looks away from him as she speaks, fixing her eyes onto her drink glass. "I _never_ did anything wrong. Never broke a single rule. I was so good, and for what? I'm so bored. Now here I am trying to get it all out before we leave for good."

"I can help you break more rules if you want, Evans," he murmurs. His eyes are gazing at her softly now, and just for a moment, she thinks maybe he can see everything in her face, radiating through the glint of her eyes or the tilt of her chin. All her insides, all her thoughts and daydreams and every single page of the new journal she's keeping—he can see it all in her face. Can't he? Lily forces herself to look back up at him at the same moment that he drops his own gaze, turns his own stupid handsome head away from her. For a passing moment, Lily thinks she sees something in _his_ face. Maybe she's imagining it.

It's undeniable now. Something inside Lily's chest cavity is definitely fluttering. She wants to reply, jab back with a retort, but something about this moment holds her back. She bites the inside of her cheek, relishing the thundering thrill that turns her heartbeat into a cacophony. She says nothing.

They sip their drinks in silence for a few moments, Lily transfixed by Rosmerta expertly mixing and pouring drinks. Then, James clears his throat. "Er, Evans," he says in a tense voice. "There's, er, something I wanted to tell you."

She slides her eyes from Rosmerta to James. His expression is nervous, the color high in his cheeks, and he looks at her with unease. "Yes?" she says gently.

He opens his mouth, then thinks better of it and takes a swig of his drink instead. Lily stares.

"What were you going to say?"

He leans his head in mock confusion. "Hm? What?"

" _That._ You were going to say something, and then you just…stopped. I've never known you to hold back, Potter. Come on, tell me."

He shakes his head. "Nah."

"Oh, come on," Lily cajoles. "I know you're dying to show off some other naughty thing you've done, aren't you?"

"It's not—" He starts to say something, but then something catches his eye. "Shit!"

"What?"

"It's Professor Rial!" James hisses, crouching down on his tall stool. Lily's eyes dart to where James is looking, and yes, there she is. Their Defense Against the Dark Arts professor is standing at the door of the Three Broomsticks, removing her cloak, her dark eyes passing over James and Lily, unseeing.

_Fuck._ Lily rips her hat from the top of the bar, jamming it over her distinctive hair, and tucking her curls up into it. With a swift movement, James grasps her wrist, stares into her eyes, and asks, "Do you trust me?"

_Yes, always._

She nods, her heart leaping into her throat. A grin of triumph crosses his face, so rapidly that Lily wonders later if she imagined it, and then they're crossing the pub, ducking into a door that Lily's never seen before, striding through a corridor stacked with boxes and crates, and then slipping out of another door into the cold, brisk air. They say nothing as James places a hand in the middle of Lily's back, guiding her across the twinkling High Street, into Honeydukes, through the cellar, and back into the tunnel. The blood is rushing in Lily's ears, adrenaline pumping through her veins as they speed through the tunnel in near silence.

It's only when they reach the statue of the one-eyed witch that Lily realizes she said nothing to James for nearly the full hour that they were in the tunnel, her mind preoccupied with whether Professor Rial had spotted them and whether Rosmerta would tell someone that she'd been there with James.

They say nothing as they heave themselves up from the tunnel and make their way back to the Gryffindor common room in silence. Lily, who would normally make small talk to fill the silence, suddenly no longer feels the need to do that. Silence with James is easy. Comfortable, even. The thought strikes her like a Stunning Spell.

"Evans, wait," James says as they approach the Fat Lady's portrait. It's the first thing he's said since they left the Three Broomsticks, and even though his voice is quiet, the sound is like the crack of a whip.

"Yes?" she replies, her voice slightly shaky.

"I—" He looks down at his shoes and then back up. Where his eyes were soft and gentle before, there's iciness. "I'm going to tell Slughorn about Snape."

The whip cracks again, but this time it's inside her mind. _"Why?"_ she hears herself say sharply.

"It's the right thing to do," he replies simply. "I just wanted to let you know before I did it."

"So what I want to do is the _wrong_ thing to do, then?" Rage is surging through her, her voice trembling.

"You don't want to do _anything_ ," James replies hotly.

A furious silence stretches between them, quite different from the adrenaline soaked silence from mere moments before.

"Fine," she replies. "Fucking fine."

"I'm going to tell him you were with me."

"Tell him whatever you want," Lily replies coldly, turning away from him to face the Fat Lady. "Doxy dung."

The portrait swings open, and Lily storms inside, James in tow. "Evans, where are you going?"

"To bed," she says shortly over her shoulder. "Bye."

"Will you just _wait!"_ It's not a question as he crosses the distance between them in two easy strides, his hands lacing around her wrists.

"Let go of me, Potter."

"No." They glare at each other before James speaks again. "Come with me to tell Slughorn. We can tell him together." He's pleading with her now, his voice pitched just so.

"No," she says, shaking her head, her curls falling loose from where they were tucked into her wool hat. "No. I won't do that."

"You still care about him." It's not a question. He looks accusingly at her. A twinge of guilt flickers in her heart.

"No," she lies. "I just won't support your prejudice against him."

"But you'll support his prejudice against Muggleborns, will you? His prejudice against you?" James's eyes are cold, boring into hers.

" _You're_ not doing this to change anything for _me."_ She laughs spitefully. "You're only doing this because you despise Severus, and you always have. Don't pretend like any of this is because you care about what happens to me."

His nostrils flare in resentment, and she can see that her words have landed exactly where she wanted them to land. With a heaving sigh, she wrenches her wrists from his hands, taking a step toward the girls' dormitories. "Do whatever you want," she says simply. "Just keep me out of it."

She turns on her heel and slips up the staircase where he can't follow.

* * *

Lily digs through a pile of clothes as Marlene and Mary watch bemusedly from their perches. She shoves one pile to the side, settling herself next to another pile of her laundry.

"Lil," Marlene intones. "When was the last time you wore the cardigan?"

Lily pauses in her rifling, staring into space as her mind wanders back to the week.

"I had it this week…" She trails off. "I took it off in Potions, I remember."

"Are you sure it's not in—" Mary gestures to the mess around Lily's bed. "—any of these many piles of clothes you have?"

"I've looked in here!" Lily huffs exasperatedly. "It's not in my wardrobe. I need it for school tomorrow!"

"Did you have it during rounds one night maybe?" Marlene suggests.

Lily contemplates Marlene's question. "I think…yes?" She pauses. "I had it at the prefect meeting…" Her eyes alight on Marlene's face. "Mar, you genius!"

"Why thank you!" Marlene replies with a smile.

"I'll be back," Lily says, pulling on her shoes

"I'll come with you!" Mary rolls off the bed, slipping her feet into her own shoes. She crosses the room to meet Lily.

"I'm calling the house elves again to do your laundry!" Marlene calls out as the dormitory door clicks shut behind Lily and Mary.

Lily and Mary bound down the stairs, Lily surreptitiously glancing around the common room, scanning it for an untidy head of black hair. _He's not here_ , she realizes as Mary pushes open the portrait, hopping out of the portrait hole. Lily follows her, swiveling her head one last time to catch a glimpse of the common room before the portrait swings shut.

They walk to the prefect meeting room together, chatting amiably about their upcoming week and laughing about Marlene and Sirius. The meeting room isn't far from Gryffindor Tower, but as they approach the arched doorway, Mary grabs Lily's elbow.

"Listen," she hisses, pulling Lily back.

"What the—" Lily says as Mary's hand clamps on Lily's mouth, silencing her.

Sure enough, drifting through the door way is a familiar voice.

"I just don't feel like you have time for me anymore," Hestia says. "I thought you said we could still be friends!"

"We can," a voice reassures her. Mary's eyes widen. It's James.

"You're always with _her,"_ Hestia says. Mary's mouth opens in shock, her hand dropping from Lily's face.

"Well, she is my—"

"Don't." Hestia cuts James off, as if she can't bear the word _girlfriend_. Blood pounds in Lily's ears.

There's a silence, and a rustling sound. "Look, we _can_ still be friends," James says quietly, so quietly that Lily nearly doesn't hear him. "But I can't just keep waiting around for you while you date some older bloke. You get why that can't happen, right?"

"He's not…" Another silence. "He's not like you. He doesn't have time for me either. He's so busy with Auror stuff and—"

"You mean he won't drop everything to meet up with you like I will, right?" James sounds angry now.

"We should leave!" Lily whispers to Mary. "This sounds private."

"Are you mad?" Mary whispers back. "She's trying to make a move on _your_ boyfriend."

"I—" Lily opens her mouth, but Mary silences her again as Hestia speaks again.

"I saw you're even _rooming_ next to her on the school trip," she says accusingly.

" _You_ have a boyfriend!" James retorts. "What do you care?"

"Maybe by the time of the trip I won't."


	6. Chapter Six

**Author Notes:** Wow, I am completely in awe of those of you who left reviews on the last chapter--thank you **Moniquepro02, Dancingonstars,** and **bertieeebee**!--and to **purpleyuan** , who left four incredibly generous reviews on earlier chapters. I'm so moved by how this story has struck different chords to each of you. I am grateful. Thank you! 

It was recommended to me to do this, but I'm not very good at promoting my own work. If you're in fan communities where you think this fic would be well received, I would love for you to share it. I am, as always, humbled by your reception to _Just Pretending_. 

* * *

**Chapter Six**

Lily doesn't know how to act the following day.

Pretending you haven't heard your fake boyfriend having an intimate conversation with his ex-girlfriend when both the fake boyfriend and the ex-girlfriend are in all the same classes and clubs as you is as unprecedented of a situation as Lily's ever been in.

"I'm going to have _words_ with Potter," Marlene had fumed when Mary and Lily had returned, and after checking that Alice was well and truly out of the dormitory, spilled every single detail of what they'd heard outside the prefect meeting room. It wasn't until later that Lily remembered why she'd gone there in the first place, and she had to make the stomach churning route back again to retrieve her cardigan, slung over the back of a chair, right where she'd left it earlier that week.

Now Lily watches as James gives her a quizzical look at lunch. She's sitting at her old spot at the Gryffindor table, the spot with the burn, while both her friends shoot surly looks at James. Lily herself pretends not to see him watching her, her eyes trained on her lunch as Marlene grumbles across the table.

"If he so much as looks over here again," she snarls under her breath. "What's he playing at anyway?"

"What did Sirius have to say?" Mary asks Marlene.

Marlene shakes her heads, violently shredding a piece of bread. "I haven't spoken to him yet," she replies. "Been too busy picturing Potter's violent demise."

Lily musters up a laugh. "What were you imagining, Mar?"

"Oh, maybe being gored by a unicorn? Or fed to the giant squid?" Marlene expression is wistful.

"Tossed to the Venomous Tentacula?" Mary suggests helpfully.

"Falling off his broom?" Lily pipes up.

"Finally, something realistic!"

The three girls laugh, their mirth almost immediately halted as Sirius approaches them.

"Hello," he says cautiously, his blue eyes trained on Marlene. "Have I done something to hack you off?"

Despite herself, Marlene flushes with pleasure. Lily can't help but smile. Over the last few weeks, she's been so preoccupied with her fake relationship that she almost nearly missed Marlene's real one. She resolves to pay more attention to her friend, and to try to get to know Sirius better. It seems obvious that, even after she and James end their relationships, Marlene and Sirius are in it for the foreseeable future. It's evident in how he looks at her, with the utmost tenderness and care, and how she seems somehow, impossibly, even more confident and self-assured under his attention. This thought gives Lily a strange twinge in her chest, as if she somehow could possibly be responsible for their forever.

Marlene shakes her head, her eyes softening at the mere sight of Sirius. "No, you didn't," she says reassuringly, patting the seat next to her. Lily resists glancing sidelong at the table at James, Remus, and Peter, but she can feel eyes on her face and knows she would meet James's eyes if she so much as peeked over there. As Sirius takes a seat, he looks at Lily with a curiosity that she's not accustomed to from him.

"Then I suppose Prongs did something idiotic?" he asks, slipping his arm around Marlene's waist and scooting closer to her.

"Well—" Mary starts heatedly, but Lily grinds her foot onto Mary's, who stops with a yelp.

"No, nothing," Lily replies. "Mary was just helping me with my Transfiguration homework."

"You know, Prongs is quite good at Transfiguration, too," Sirius says slyly.

"I'm better," Mary replies with a sardonic smile.

"Oh, are you?" Sirius says slyly. "Maybe you can help me, too. Can't seem to keep my marks up now that my spare time is…" He smiles at Marlene. "…otherwise occupied."

Marlene dissolves into giggles.

Lily somehow manages to evade James for nearly two full days with the help of her loyal friends, who glower at him if he gets too near their triad. It's not until breakfast on Wednesday morning that a trembling girl with short, cropped black hair and a ton of freckles approaches Lily at breakfast.

"Er, Lily?" she squeaks, clutching a piece of parchment to her heart.

Lily, busily stuffing herself with toast, chokes as she takes a breath to respond, resulting in a hacking fit that only dissipates when Mary whacks Lily's back repeatedly.

"Yes?" Lily finally replies, dabbing at her watering eyes with the edge of her shirtsleeve.

"I have a note," the girl says. "For you."

"From Potter, probably," Marlene says darkly, glancing along the table where James should be. "Give it here." Marlene extends her hand. The girl's fingers tighten around the parchment.

"They told me only to give it to Lily Evans," she says sternly, and it nearly makes Lily laugh out loud.

"It's alright," Lily responds kindly. "I'll take it. Thank you!" The girl places the parchment into Lily's outreached hand and then, with a deep blush, scampers away.

"Don't read that, Lil!" Mary says with a snarl.

"It's not from him," Lily says, examining the parchment. "It's a Hogwarts seal." She slides her finger under the wax seal, which is still slightly warm to the touch. This note is brand new, she realizes, before unfurling it. She reads it once, twice, and then a third time before rising from the tables.

"Head Girl stuff," she mutters to Mary and Marlene's perplexed expressions.

She hasn't been to the Hospital Wing since her disastrous flying lesson, but the minute she enters, she hears raised voices. With a skip in her step, she hurries across the flagstone floor toward the din, finally peeking behind a hospital screen. An odd sight meets her eyes.

James, Professors Flitwick, Slughorn, and McGonagall, and Madam Pomfrey are all talking loudly over one another. In a hospital bed underneath them is Jeffrey Gerhardt, the Ravenclaw prefect, his dark eyes only barely distinguishable from underneath the thousands of purple tentacles that had sprouted all over his face. He more resembled a sea anemone than a boy, and Lily has to fight back a gag as she raises her eyes from Gerhardt's face to meet James's eyes. He sidles over to her as the teachers argue amongst themselves.

"What happened?" Lily mutters to James.

"Looks like he's been dueling again," James replies. "But of course, he won't admit it."

Professor McGonagall finally takes a breath from shouting when she notices Lily. "Miss Evans," she says sternly. "Thank you for coming."

"Of course, Professor," Lily replies, fighting the urge to stare at Gerhardt, and instead training her gaze onto Professor McGonagall's face. "What can I do to help?"

"We've asked you here to let you know that we will be stripped Mr. Gerhardt here of his prefect badge!" Professor Flitwick says loudly, trying not to glare at Gerhardt.

"Oh!" Lily exclaims. "I didn't know that was possible."

"It certainly is." McGonagall's nostrils flare, and Lily silently thanks the powers-that-be that she's never received that look from the Deputy Headmistress. "Mr. Gerhardt is no longer a prefect. I apologize, but this means you will have to adjust your rounds schedule for the upcoming month while we find an adequate replacement."

"No problem, Professor," James replies instantly. "We'll get it done as soon as possible."

"And call a prefect meeting," McGonagall adds. "Maybe even this evening if possible."

Both James and Lily nod their assent, both determinedly avoiding looking at Gerhardt.

"And do either of you have any ideas as to with _whom_ Mr. Gerhardt has been dueling?" Madam Pomfrey asks from where she's hovering over the tentacled boy.

"No idea," James replies. "You can fix him, right?"

"I can certainly try," Madam Pomfrey says. "But this isn't a spell we've seen before. It's new."

"New?" Lily blurts out, a cold, sinking sensation finding purchase in her stomach. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I'd never seen this spell before until Mr. Gerhardt came in last month. It wasn't as bad as this, though," Pomfrey explains. "I have to figure out a countercurse before this becomes permanent."

Gerhardt squeaks from behind her, a moan of anguish expelling from his lips.

"Whoever the caster is, they've become better and more skilled at this particular jinx than the last time Mr. Gerhardt was in the Hospital Wing," Professor Slughorn says.

"You're certain it's a student?" Lily blurts out.

Their eyes all turn to her, their silence speaking volumes.

"You think a teacher would do this to a student, Miss Evans?" Professor Slughorn says, aghast.

Realizing what she's implied, she backpedals. "No, no, of course not. Just wondering if maybe he was bitten by an animal or something."

A quiet relief washes over the assembled group. "Yes, we're fairly certain this is a spell," Pomfrey says.

There's a silence as Lily's mind races. There's only one person she knows who could invent a jinx like this…

"You may go now," McGonagall says, gesturing at James and Lily. "And thank you for coming."

"Good luck, Professor," James says as he and Lily depart.

They leave the Hospital Wing with only the sound of their shoes on the flagstone to accompany them. Suddenly, without the emergency of Gerhardt's possibly permanently altered appearance, Lily feels quite awkward with James. She remembers what she heard him say with Hestia, and low burn of jealousy flickers in her chest.

"Do you want me to call a prefect meeting?" James asks once they're in the entrance hall. Students filter aimlessly through the entrance hall now, waiting for the morning bell to ring.

"Sure," Lily says absently. "I can do the rounds schedule."

"Evans," James huffs. "Why are you hacked off at me?"

Lily blinks. "I'm not hacked off at you." _Liar_ , she thinks.

"Is that why you've been avoiding me for three full days?" James asks, crossing his arm across his chest to grasp his elbow. "Your mates won't even let me near you."

"Well, have you _tried_ to get near me, Potter?"

"No because McKinnon looks dangerous."

"It's really Mary you have to beware of," Lily replies, trying not to betray the fact that she is, in fact, very hacked off at him. "She's the one who will destroy you."

"Noted," he says as they reach the stairs. "But tell me why you're hacked off."

"I'm telling you, I'm _not_ hacked off."

"You _seem_ hacked off."

Lily raises her eyebrows. "Well, _now_ I am hacked off."

"Fine! I'll let it go."

Lily scoffs. "Potter, the day you let a _single_ thing go, I'll eat a hippogriff."

"Get that appetite ready, then," James replies with a grin that makes her stomach flip. _I hate your smile_ , she reminds herself.

* * *

She spots him with his friends as she's leaving Dueling Club.

"I'll catch up," Lily says to Mary and Marlene. "I just have to do something."

When they're out of her eyeline, she turns to the subject of her search. "Severus!" she calls across the corridor. "Can I have a minute?"

He turns, his eyes widening in surprise at her voice. He turns to Avery and Mulciber, muttering something out of the side of his mouth. Avery and Mulciber sneer in Lily's direction before sloping away lazily. Severus tentatively crosses the corridor to meet Lily, his eyes still surprised.

"Are you sure you want to be seen with me?" Severus jokes, but Lily's mouth is tightened into a grim line. His smile falters at her forbidding expression.

"Don't joke," she says warningly. "I want to ask you something."

"No, I can't help you with your Veritaserum," he says in a joking tone again, faltering again when Lily doesn't take the bait.

She clears her throat, glancing around the corridor. It's not quite abandoned, but she doesn't see anyone she knows. For a moment, she glares at her feet, then lifts her eyes to look into Severus's face. Her stomach lurches at the sight of him. He is achingly familiar to her. His face is older, more handsome than it was when he was a little boy, and for the briefest moment, Lily considers simply turning away and running. She turns this idea over in her mind, wondering how she got to be in Gryffindor when in reality, she is simply a coward.

"Lily?" he asks, and her name coming from his mouth feels like putting on your oldest, most favorite jumper that fit you just perfectly.

"Sev," she croaks, clearing her throat one more time. _Time to be brave, Lily._ "Do you know who jinxed Jeffrey Gerhardt?"

"No," he says, glaring at some younger students who scurry past them. "I didn't even know he'd been jinxed again. He's always been a bit of an idiot."

"Sev," Lily presses. "Tell me the truth."

He narrows his eyes. "What makes you think I'm lying?"

"Pomfrey said it's a new spell," Lily replies. "She's never seen it before."

"And you think I invented it." His voice is flat.

She nods.

There is an awkward silence between them, and then Severus's voice comes out strangled and filled with rage. "Have you _ever_ considered giving me the benefit of the doubt, Lily?"

Now it's Lily's turn to narrow her eyes. "What did I do from first to fifth year, Sev? I always gave you the benefit of the doubt, _always_ ," she snaps.

"Maybe your little Transfiguration prodigy boyfriend did it," Severus retorts. "He's certainly more capable of cruelty than me. Or perhaps you've forgotten that."

"He's—" A sudden rush of defensiveness comes over Lily. "He would never do that. He's not the person you remember from years ago, Sev. He'd never invent a jinx that would permanently disfigure someone."

Severus's nostrils flare, and he raises his chin defiantly. "What makes you think _I_ did it?"

"You're the only one clever enough to invent your own jinxes!" Lily tells him, hoping that flattery will get her to the answer that she wants. "And even if you didn't do it—did you maybe tell someone about it?"

"I haven't told anyone about any spells I came up with except for _you_." His arms are crossed obstinately across his chest. Lily stares at him.

"Why don't I believe you?" she says finally, her voice conveying the dejected feeling in her heart. "I used to always be able to trust you, but…somewhere along the way, that changed."

"I hurt you," he says, and she knows where he's going with this. "I know I hurt you that day by the lake, but, Lily. I'm sorry. I can still—" He pauses, his eyes boring into hers, filling her with a pain that can't be named. "I can still be good. For you. I'm not lost yet."

Lily lets in a sharp breath. Is he saying what she thinks he's saying?

"What were you doing in Hogsmeade?" she demands in a low voice, making sure that no one can hear her. "With that blond bloke. Malfoy or whatever his name is."

"I—"

"Lily." Another voice. James's voice. Lily feels her stomach plummet as she whirls around to see his untidy hair and hard expression. His eyes flit to Severus and then back at her, his face completely closed off.

She turns back to Severus. "Sorry, I have to go, Sev. Bye."

"Lily, wait—"

"I can't, okay?" she says over her shoulder as she hurries toward James. "I can't." His shoulders slump, and Lily thinks that she may remember him this way for the rest of her life. With a mighty determination, she turns back to James, who has by now turned his back to her and is taking long furious strides.

"Hey!" Lily says, ignoring students who are watching them curiously. "James! Wait!"

He abruptly stops and turns on his heel to face her. Lily halts, nearly tripping in the process. Never has she ever seen his face lined with anger so palpable that it radiates off of him. With a quick glance around, she grabs his elbow and steers him into an empty classroom where she shuts the door. With a deep breath, she turns to face him.

"What are you playing at, Evans?" He's not _quite_ shouting, but he's certainly not making any efforts to be quiet.

"What are you _talking_ about?" she shoots back.

"You and Snape!" He gestures furiously toward the door. "Whenever I can't find you, I somehow always end up finding you with _him_. What are people going to say when they see _my_ girlfriend hanging around with that wannabe Dark Lord?"

Lily has had just about enough. "Hmm, let me think!" she says mockingly. "Maybe the same thing they'll say when they hear that you're practically begging Hestia to get back together with you in the prefect meeting room!"

His jaw drops. "Are you _spying_ on me?"

"You see, you don't even deny it!"

"So _what_ if I'm talking to her?" he snaps. "It's not like you really _care_ about any of this." He's pointing at her again, and something taut snaps in the tense air between them.

"Of course, I—" She stops before she can say, _Of course I care about you._ Instead, she says, "Am I just a joke to you, James?"

"Are _you_ a—" He runs a hand through his hair, and Lily knows by now that this is a classic indication that James is upset. He's frustrated and _angry_ , but so is she and why shouldn't they fight it out? "No, you're not a bloody joke to me."

"I—" She pauses, gearing up for an argument, but finding none in his words. "Wait, what?"

"I _said,_ " he repeats, moving closer to Lily. "You're not a joke to me, Evans. Lily."

He's so close now that Lily could reach out and feel the front of his shirt, wrap his school tie around her hand and yank him even closer to her until his lithe muscles were pressed up against her body and—

He steps closer to her. Her breath hitches in her throat, her pulse ratcheting up.

"What do you want, Lily?" he says quietly.

"I don't know." She surprises herself. The words had slipped out. She hadn't _meant_ to say them.

"You _do_ know," he says, stepping even closer still. "Tell me."

"I…" She dares to sneak a look at his face, and it's quite different from what had been there mere moments ago. His anger is gone, replaced instead by a completely different kind of fire. "I have to go," she whispers, reaching behind her, turning the doorknob, and slipping out.

Heart racing, she sprints up seven flights of stairs before collapsing in front of the Fat Lady's portrait, chest heaving. She clutches the stitch in her side, extending her legs out in front of her, the wall cold against her back. Lily leans her head back against the wall, feeling her heartbeat slow as she blinks slowly. _What_ had just happened? Severus and then James—both of them telling her everything she wanted to hear, and yet, somehow she feels even _more_ confused than before.

"Lily?"

Lily opens her eyes. It's Alice, peering down at her with a quizzical look on her face. "What're you doing down there?" she asks.

"Nothing," Lily lies, but to her horror, feels hot tears spring into her eyes.

Alice's face betrays the alarm she's feeling as she looks around. "D'you want me to get Mary or Marlene or Potter or…someone?"

"No, please don't!" Lily exclaims. "Really, I'm fine." She swipes her sleeve across her eyes.

With a sigh, Alice drops to seat herself beside Lily right next to the Fat Lady's portrait. "Lily, I know we haven't been friends for a long time, but I still remember that when you insist you're fine, you're usually not."

Now Lily feels alarm, but she laughs instead. "I suppose I should know better than to lie to you," she replies, feeling the lump in her throat dissipate.

"Is there something you want to share with me?" Alice offers. "I can keep a secret better than most, you know."

Lily turns her head to look at Alice, her lovely round face, and she thinks, _Yes. I could tell Alice_. But then what would Mary and Marlene think later, knowing she'd told Alice Bryant everything, but not told them?

"Do you know who Hestia's new bloke is then?" Lily says, hoping to steer the conversation away from her.

Alice nods, a smirk evident on her lips. "Yes, of course," she says. "But you know I can't tell _you_ of all bloody people. I've sworn loyalty to Hess."

"I always wondered why you picked her," Lily says offhandedly, not fully realizing what she's saying until the words are out of her mouth.

Alice snorts. "I didn't _pick_ her."

Lily looks quizzically at Alice now. "I mean, you stopped talking to me after she got so angry at me—"

"Are you _really_ doing this right now?" Alice's voice is laced in incredulity.

"Doing what?"

"Lily." Alice pauses, letting out a long shaky breath, as if gathering her nerves. "You lot stopped talking to _me._ "

"Huh?"

"That summer after fifth year? Marlene was supposed to invite all of us to her parents' summer place on the shore, but I never got an owl."

"Because we thought—"

"You thought wrong," Alice says flatly. "You just _assumed_ I had taken her side, but I knew she was wrong to take it out on you."

"But—"

"And I was as surprised as anyone when she came back here dating Potter," Alice says tersely. "It was obvious to anyone with two eyes that he was obsessed with you, but then…I guess something changed."

"Alice, I—" Lily falters, not quite knowing what to say. Hadn't it been obvious to her that Alice had chosen Hestia? She tries to cast back to her memories from that day and the torturous weeks after, but she'd been so consumed with Severus's betrayal and Hestia's rage that she'd completely ignored Alice who had been, after all, her friend, too.

"I'm sorry," Lily finally says to her. "I didn't know, and I didn't think to ask you."

The intensity of Alice's stare turns Lily's stomach. Why did people insist on looking at her like that all day long? First Severus, then James, and now Alice of all people.

"You know," Alice says, breaking eye contact with Lily as she pulls a fuzz off her jumper. "I think I actually believe that you didn't know."

Lily flushes. "I didn't, I swear."

"You are forgiven, Lily Evans," Alice says now with a beatific smile. "And thank you."

"Thank _you_ ," Lily responds fervently, watching as Alice rises from her spot on the floor. "For you know—telling me."

"Only took two years!" Alice laughs, extending her hand down toward Lily, who grasps it and pulls herself up, smoothing her skirt down. Alice's eyes meet Lily's again, and Lily is surprised to see Alice looking quite serious now. "Are you sure you don't want to tell me what you were doing down there crying?"

Lily nods. "Maybe in two more years," she jokes, and Alice laughs.

* * *

_Meet me in the dungeons tonight after dinner._

James had passed her the note in Defense Against the Dark Arts, right in front of Hestia and everyone else. Lily's cheeks burned as she shoved the note into her bag, only opening it when she was alone in the loo. With a heavy sigh, she shoved the note back into her bag. Of course. Their Veritaserum. It was her, after all, who had suggested testing it this week for their presentation next Monday. When they had worked on it in Potions this week, it was nearing the end of its curing period. Of course, she hadn't told James that as she was determinedly not speaking to him at the time.

She couldn't avoid speaking to him tonight.

She changes out of her school clothes, slipping on black jeans, a clingy black jumper, and her boots. She winds her hair up out of her face, and on a whim, swipes a bit of pale pink lipstick on her lips before making her way down to the Great Hall. In the common room, she spies Marlene, Sirius, Peter, and Mary playing Exploding Snap by the fire.

"Lily!" Mary calls out, laughing. "Come sit with us."

Reluctantly, Lily crosses the room, perching on the arm of Mary's chair, and leaning against her friend slightly.

"You look _nice_!" Marlene says from her seat next to Sirius. He has his arm draped around her casually, his hand rest at her hip, and Lily wonders if he and Potter practice being so nonchalant. How can they make it seem like nothing takes any effort at all?

"Thanks," Lily says, raising her eyebrows. "Where are the other two Marauders?"

"Moony is laid up," Sirius informs her, his eyes still focused on the deck of cards. "And Prongs said he had to work on his Potions project with you." Finally, he looks up at her, his impossibly blue eyes piercing her. "But you're here so…who knows where _he_ is."

 _Probably with Hestia,_ Lily thinks darkly.

"I was about to go to dinner and then to meet him," Lily explains, wondering if her too long silence had blown her cover. She glances around, wondering if James is in the common room, but she doesn't see him.

"Are you two still rowing?" Sirius asks casually, his eyes still focused on Lily's face instead of his card game.

Lily raises her eyebrow. "We're not rowing."

"That's not what—" Sirius starts, but Marlene sticks her elbow into his ribs, hard, and it looks like it _hurt_ because he yelps, rubbing his side gingerly.

James isn't in the Great Hall, either, and as Lily eats dinner alone, she wonders exactly how James is going to behave this evening. Ever since their late night excursion to Hogmeade had ended so disastrously, Lily can't help but feel completely off-kilter around him. He knows exactly how to push her buttons to send her into a blind rage, but he also knows which buttons to push to spin her completely off her orbit, too. And when they're not fighting, Lily can't help but feel like James is the only person who really understands her. It doesn't hurt that his face and body are also completely perfect, and all she wants to do when she's around him is yell at him or snog him senseless. This is not sustainable, she decides, and with a sinking feeling, realizes that she has to convince him to break it off.

She'd tried to break it off once before, under the stairs after breakfast when he started insisting again about going to Dumbledore about Severus, but he'd refused, insisting on maintaining their false relationship status through the school trip.

She would have to tell him why. Because it was becoming too much for her, to keep pretending with him, and that what she was feeling for him didn't come and go in waves—it was constant and unending, permeating every single cell of her being. Even after she wrote it all down, it still persisted. Her heart still leapt when she saw him, her stomach still swooped if he smiled at her, and his ability to completely infuriate her—that wasn't a symptom of her dislike for him, but quite the opposite.

Lily had fallen in love with James Potter.

And he didn't feel the same way for her.

It had to end.

The thought lances through her like a big, painful thing. If she ended it tonight, he would be back together with Hestia within the week. Somehow, that doesn't hurt as much as she had previously thought it would. He could be with anyone else, Lily decides, and the only thing that would hurt would be the fact that he wouldn't be with _her._ He wouldn't help her with her Transfiguration. He wouldn't try to make her laugh. He wouldn't teach her to fly or take her to Hogsmeade. His warm voice wouldn't envelop around her on their rounds, telling her stories and asking her questions. He wouldn't laugh at her jokes. The thought of losing him completely—as a friend, even—burned fiercely inside her, a painful burn, like if you stuck your hand into a blazing fire for too long.

But the end would come, she realizes with a start that is as cold as the dungeons into which she's descended. If it didn't happen tonight, it would happen at Stonehenge, like they'd both decided. She'd _agreed_ to this. _You idiot_ , she lectures herself as she reaches the Potions classroom.

With a deep breath, she steels herself, and enters. Exactly as she expects, he's there, standing at their usual table, his cauldron releasing long curls of steam that obscure his face, but only just. The sight of him, his messy hair, his freckles that sprinkle over his nose, his broad shoulders under his white shirt, and his mouth—fuck, his _mouth_ —takes Lily's breath away. She watches him for a moment, silent as a mouse, as he refers to his textbook, peering back into the cauldron, muttering to himself.

What she'd have to do tonight tightens around her heart, and she suddenly feels the urge to flee. Leave this dungeon, leave this castle, sprint across the grounds, and into Hogsmeade, and Apparate to—where? She had nowhere to go, not anymore. Hogwarts was her home now.

Lily clears her throat, and James jumps.

"For Merlin's sake!" James says, clutching his chest over his heart. "Why are you sneaking up on me?"

"Sorry," she says simply, weaving through the tables toward him. "How's it look?"

"You tell me," he says, beckoning her over. "You're the prodigy."

She doesn't want to get close to him, to smell oranges and toothpaste, but she moves around the table now, looking into the cauldron, knowing exactly what she'd see.

"It's perfect," she says. "It's done." She looks over at him, expecting him to be peering into the cauldron, but he's watching her instead. Her stomach flips.

"This may be the first time I get a perfect mark in Potions, Evans," he says, grinning.

"Well, that's all well and good, but did you learn anything?" Lily says, hopping up on the table next to the cauldron and uncorking four long vials.

"I learned that lacewing flies are an end of the potion ingredient," he recites dutifully, dropping down onto a stool and propping his elbows on the table. "And I learned that I should always partner with the best potioneer our year has to offer."

She blushes. "I'm really not."

He looks skeptically at her through his glasses. "You're better than Snape," he says, and she feels her heart skip a beat. Any mention of Snape has nearly always resulted in an argument between them, but this time, the mention passes like steam from the cauldron, up and up and away.

Carefully, Lily measures out four vials of the potion, and fills a dropper for testing it out tonight. She's avoiding James's eyes, but he's watching her as she works. Finally, she sets the vials and the dropper down, scooting the cauldron away so she can see him better.

"Hey, I—" she starts, but he interrupts her.

"You saw I set a prefect meeting for right after classes end tomorrow, right?"

She nods. "Yes, I saw."

"Do you think you can have the new rounds schedule ready by then? I can help you with it if you want."

"I did it already," she says, leaning across the table to grab her bag. She flips it open, and after rummaging inside for a moment, she pulls out the parchment with the new schedule. He takes it wordlessly, his eyes scanning it.

"You've got me on rounds tomorrow," he says, his eyes narrowing.

"Yes," she says. "I'm sorry. I know that means you have three Friday rounds in a row, but with Gerhardt out and Remus ill again, I can't find anyone else to go with me."

"Well, I can't do it tomorrow," he says, handing the schedule back over. "You'll have to find someone else."

A knife of annoyance cuts through her. "Well, I mean, I did try to find someone else," she explains. "But everyone else has rounds either tonight or Saturday. You're the only one who didn't have rounds tomorrow and—"

"Well, I have plans." His voice is flat, brooking no argument, and that knife of annoyance is now lodged into Lily.

"Well, cancel them," she says, feeling her temper flare. "Or tell whoever you have plans with that you'll be late." In her overactive imagination, she imagines James and Hestia have a rendezvous in a deserted classroom. Or worse, he takes her to Hogsmeade for a drink, and they both laugh at stupid Lily, falling for James.

"I _can't_ ," he says tersely, and the tension between them is rising. Lily is determined to keep her cool.

"What do you have to do tomorrow that you can't be a little late or miss?" she asks, keeping her voice steady and hoping she sounds calm.

To her astonishment, instead of a rude retort, James's face reddens deeply. He averts his eyes from her face, twisting his hands together nervously on the tabletop. With a pang, Lily realizes that maybe he _is_ going to see Hestia, and he doesn't want to tell her.

"If you're seeing Hestia tomorrow—" she starts, but the look of horror that crosses his face halts her train of thought.

"What? No. That's not what I'm doing."

"Then what _are_ you doing?"

His silence is so pervasive that Lily thinks she can hear students from the Great Hall chattering over dinner. Then—

"I can't tell you."

She lets out a low whistle, raising her eyebrows at him. "James Potter with a secret? What a surprise." Her voice drips with sarcasm.

"Okay, I know you think I'm a huge hypocrite or whatever, but I really can't do rounds with you tomorrow. I'm sorry. I'm busy."

She shrugs. "Fine. I'll just do it alone then."

He looks alarmed at her words. "What do you mean, alone? You can't do rounds alone. In _this_ castle? With a mad poltergeist?"

"Well, I can't do rounds with you, and no one else is available so I suppose—"

"Evans, you can't be wandering around the dark castle alone."

She glances at him skeptically as she examines the contents of one of the vials. "Why not? _You_ do it all the time."

"I do not," he objects. "I'm almost always with my mates."

" _Almost_ always?" Her eyebrows are raised again.

With a grin, he scoots closer to the table, dropping his chin into his hand, and tilts his head at her. "Fine," he says softly. "Sometimes I'm alone."

"I knew it!" Lily says, smiling back at him. "And what are you doing tomorrow? Mates or sneaking around by yourself?"

His smile drops slightly. "Evans, I really can't—"

"Are you going to go howl at the full moon?" Lily says jokingly, plucking a loose strand of her hair off her sleeve. "All four of you get naked and just dance around a fire at Hagrid's hut or something during the full moon?"

His face drains of blood, his mouth falling open. "Lily, you—"

"What?" She looks at him, confused. "What did I say?"

"Hm?" He readjusts his face, pretending as if he hadn't just looked like a ghost had walked right through him. "What did you say?"

And then, all of a sudden, everything snaps into place for Lily. The full moon. The maimed room in the Shrieking Shack. The Thursday night before Halloween. And most of all—Remus. In the Hospital Wing. Always, always ill in the Hospital Wing.

Unbidden, a memory unfurls in Lily's mind. She and Severus, crossing the courtyard. He's saying, "There's something weird about that Lupin. Where does he keep going?"

"He's ill," Lily remembers replying. "They say he's ill."

Lily squeezes her eyes shut, the words lodged in her throat. When she opens her eyes, James is standing in front of her, his arms outstretched with his palms up.

"Lily," he whispers. "You can't—"

"I won't," she replies quickly, looking him directly in the eye. "I won't tell anyone. Why would I? I like Remus. I don't want him to get into any…trouble."

James sags with relief. "Okay." His breath is coming in short little gasps. "Thank you."

"You don't need to thank me, James," she says quietly. "I would never tell anyone a secret like this. I swear." She pauses, realizing the irony of what she's going to say before she says it. "You can trust me."

"You can't even write this down, not even in a journal," James whispers, looking at her entreatingly. "It can never get out that Moony is—"

"Moony. Of _course_. I'm an idiot." Lily tries to laugh, but the moment is fraught, as if she's balancing on a knife's edge and could teeter off with the force of a gentle breeze. James is staring at her like she's a bomb about to explode any minute. His face is a mixture of fear and apprehension and…is that some amusement she sees in there?

"James," she says, reaching out to place a soothing hand on his arm. "You can trust me. I promise I won't say a word." Their eyes meet across the expanse between them, and Lily hopes she looks trustworthy. He scrutinizes her, his eyes sliding across her face, and then, with a nod, he drops his arms.

"Alright," he says with a grimace. "I suppose I won't have to modify your memory then."

She smiles gently. "You would never."

He nods in agreement. "You're right. I wouldn't. Couldn't risk you forgetting all about our snog on the Quidditch pitch."

Her cheeks burn, but she smirks. "Which one?"

He laughs at this, throwing his head back, his Adam's apple bobbing, and Lily feels a sudden flash of pleasure at this. She _loves_ making him laugh, and why shouldn't she keep making him laugh until at least the school trip? Did Hestia make him laugh? She casts her mind back to when they were together, and she can't remember ever seeing Hestia make him laugh like this. She joins him, his mirth infectious, and within moments, she's bent over, her eyes streaming with hysterical tears as the Potions dungeon echoes with their laughter until it dies down. They gasp in tandem, taking deep breaths to fill their lungs, and James is wiping his eyes now, too, removing his glasses to swipe his sleeve across his face.

"Wait, I have a question," Lily starts, and James groans dramatically, dropping his face into his hands.

"What?" he asks, his voice laced with reticence from behind his fingers..

"Why do _you_ need to be there tomorrow night?" Lily asks in a low voice. She is certain there is no one else in the room, but she still keeps her voice soft. His face emerges, his eyebrows shooting up to nearly reach his hairline.

With a quick motion, he strides across the stone floor, poking his head out of the door and looking up and down the corridor. Once he's satisfied that no one is there, he returns, leaping up on the table across from Lily with a feline ease that Lily envies.

"Okay," he says seriously. "Ask me whatever you want."

She smiles, and she sees the hint of a smile return to his lips. "Why do you need to be with him?"

His hands tighten on the edge of the desk, his fingers whitening with the pressure. "It—helps him. It keeps him safe if we're there with him."

Now her eyebrows shoot up in alarm. "But that's really dangerous!" she says, trying to keep her voice low. "He could bite any of you!"

James shakes his head. "No, he knows us. He wouldn't."

"James, when he—" She clears her throat. "When he's not himself, he doesn't know anyone or anything. He's an…animal."

"It's more complicated than that," James says sternly. "He knows us, okay? We've been there with him for nearly three years—I can swear to you—"

" _Three years?"_ Lily gapes.

"Will you _please_ stop looking at me like that?" He blows his cheeks out in frustration, and Lily can tell that he's trying as hard as she is to keep his own temper.

"I can't help it! You've just told me something really surprising, and I'm just trying to process everything, okay? I'm sorry I can't just accept this and move on, but I need to…think. And ask questions."

"I thought you would have already known," James says drily, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling. "Maybe Snape had told you."

"He had…suspicions," Lily admits, fidgeting with the sleeve of her jumper. "He kept trying to tell me about the Whomping Willow, but I never thought it was serious."

James's eyes harden. "The Whomping Willow?" he croaks.

"Yeah, he said something about—what?" James is staring at her now, his eyes piercing.

"He would have," James nearly snarls. "He would have told everyone he knows."

"Well, I mean, he only really told me, and I don't even think he _really_ knows. He just noticed that Remus was always sick at the full moon and— _why are you looking at me like that?"_ James's eyes have hardened, filled with a look of hatred that Lily has never seen on his face before. He looks ready to spit.

"You don't know, do you?" James asks slowly, his tone measured and careful. "What happened last spring?"

Lily's pulse hurtles to a deafening thrum in her ears. Last spring, when she noticed him finally. Is this it? Is this what changed him?

"What do you mean, _what happened last spring?"_

He looks down and up in rapid succession. "Lily, if I tell you this, you'll hate me forever."

She raises her chin. "Try me."

With a sigh, he begins to speak. "I didn't know about Remus at first," he says, his voice hoarse. "When we all became friends, we all just thought his mother was ill once a month. That's what he told us, and up until the end of second year, we believed him. Then, I invited him and Sirius and Peter to my parents' house on the coast for the summer, but Remus had to leave suddenly in the middle of the week because his mother was ill again. That's when I put it all together."

Lily is rapt, her every sense tingling as James speaks, his voice soft yet clear in the dungeon.

"Moony was surprised we'd still want to be his friends, but of _course_ we would. He's _Moony_. You know him. He's the best. Where would we be without him? He's one of _us_ , you know? You can't just ditch people because of things they can't help. Bloody hell."

And at this, a wave of affection for James washes over Lily. James, who found out his best friend was a werewolf, and who, instead of discarding him and treating him like a dangerous beast, held him closer. Lily wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to be loved that way by James. How must Remus feel when he looks at James? _And Hestia, too_ , Lily thinks somberly, her traitorous mind remembering Hestia at all the best moments she has with James.

"You should know that Snape's been poking around for years about Remus," James continues, looking pointedly in Lily's direction. "I'm talking about _years_ at this point. He was always asking where Moony would go, and part of why…well, there's no excuse for what happened by the lake, but Sirius was sore about Severus trying to point out all the signs of a werewolf in Defense in front of everyone. Do you remember that?" he asks her, and Lily nods, remembering Severus trying publicly suss out his own suspicions about Remus's mystery illness.

James keeps going. "Then, last spring, he showed up in the Hospital Wing when Moony was supposed to be there one night, pretending to be ill but really he was just ferreting about." James's face takes on an ugly quality as he recounts this story, and Lily can see more plainly than ever before the level of loathing he feels for Severus.

"When he didn't see him there, he got even more suspicious. Moony's illness wasn't very well hidden, but we never thought that Snape of all people would go snooping around. He never could keep his enormous nose out of other people's business," James continued, his expression hardening further.

"Anyway, the next month, Snape caught Sirius sneaking out of the castle during his prefect rounds. And as a joke, Sirius told him how to get into the tunnel under the Whomping Willow."

"The tunnel…?" Lily trails off, transfixed.

"Oh yeah, sorry, Snape never told you all the details, did he? So you couldn't know. There's a tunnel under the Whomping Willow, and it'll take you to the Shrieking Shack. That's where Moony goes every full moon. So Sirius comes back to the common room, having a great big laugh about what he told Snape. Moony was already in the Shack. So I ask Sirius _when_ Snape is going to go, and he says, Probably right bloody now."

Lily's jaw drops at this. "Was Remus—" She hesitates briefly. "—transformed?"

James nods grimly.

"We _all_ knew that when Snape got to the Shrieking Shack, he was going to be looking into the eyes of a fully grown werewolf. I didn't even have time to think, Lily. I just bolted out of there. I barely made it there to stop Snape. He was _at_ the trapdoor, about to open it. He was going to go in just to see for himself, the prat. I had to pull him back, make him come back with me. He argued with me the whole way back. I thought I may have to knock him out. Of course, the minute we got back to the castle, he went straight to Dumbledore's office."

Lily gasps, clapping her hands to her mouth. "Oh no," she whispers from beneath her palms, but James is shaking his head, waving his hand carelessly.

"Dumbledore knows everything about Moony," James continues. "He was the one who convinced Moony's parents to send him to school here, you know. He had the Whomping Willow planted with a little knot you can press so Moony could get in and out of the tunnel during the full moon. He spread the rumors about the Shack being haunted because—"

"Because he didn't want anyone going to investigate," Lily finishes, dropping her hands from her mouth.

James nods. "Snape went—well, ballistic is a nicer word for it. He threatened to go to the school governors, tell them Dumbledore was letting a _dangerous animal_ live in the castle—" At these words, James flexes his fists, like the mere memory makes him want to punch Severus. "—but Dumbledore talked him down in the end."

Lily's mouth falls open. "But Severus is right!" she says. "It's so dangerous to have Remus in the castle and—"

"It's _not_ ," James replies in a tone that brooks no argument. "Lily, we have it under control."

"It can't be _under control_ , James," Lily argues. "It's by nature an uncontrollable ailment and—"

He holds his hand up to silence here, and miracle of miracles, it works. For a long moment, Lily revises the details of his tale in her mind, exploring its corners, feeling the edges, and then finally, her green eyes search out his brown ones. His brows are furrowed together in worry, and he's gnawing on his bottom lip anxiously.

"Well?" he says, a slight shake in his voice. "Do you hate me now?"

"No, James, of _course_ not," she bursts out. "Am I angry? A bit, but not at you. Mostly at Sirius, and I suppose a bit at Severus, but—"

"A _bit_ at-!" James says heatedly, his voice rising.

"Just listen," Lily says, frowning. She sucks in a deep breath, and then speaks. "I don't know if I'm going to say this the right way, but you—you did the right thing when you went to get Severus." James's jaw drops at her words, but she pushes onward, wanting to complete her thought. "James, do you realize what you _did_ for him? You saved his _life_. After all that, all your history with him, you still did what was right. The correct thing. The _brave_ thing. You know he'll owe you for that for the rest of his life, right?" At these words, James nods, a small, mysterious smile on his lips. "That's what changed you, isn't it? You saved Severus's life and—"

But now James is shaking his head, his hair falling across his eye _just_ so which makes Lily's heart skip a beat. "No, no, it has nothing to do with Snape," he says bitterly. "And everything to do with _me_."

"You?" Lily tilts her head in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Yeah, _me_ ," he repeats. "I could have stopped it way before it got that far. You know why Sirius did what he did? Because _I_ never stopped him doing anything nasty to anyone. And I let him do all _kinds_ of things to Snape. Call him Snivellus. Let him bully whoever he wanted, but _especially_ Snape. That day down by the lake—I let Sirius bully Snape, thinking it would cheer him up. All of them—Moony, Wormtail, and Padfoot most of all—I don't know if you've noticed but they kind of—look up to me." He blushes brilliant vermilion at these words, his gaze dropping from embarrassment.

Lily bites the corner of her lip to keep herself from smiling, thinking back to what she wrote in her journal. _You're a good leader_.

"I suppose you think that makes me conceited, but—it's true, alright? They do," he continues, lifting his eyes to meet hers again. "But I never knew or understood what that meant. All these years, I thought no one was really paying attention to what I did. It's why I craved _your_ attention, Evans. I never took responsibility for anything. But that day, I realized that…well, Sirius wouldn't have done it if he'd known how angry I'd get. He thought I would think it was a riot, sending Snape down there to die." His tone is biting. "But they were all watching me the whole time. And even worse, they were emulating me."

"Oh," Lily says softly. It's all she can say in this moment because if she says anything, she might blurt out something like _They're not the only ones watching you_.

"And I just—I had to change." His eyes are focused on hers intently now, almost like he's pleading with her to understand. Does he know she already does?

"That's why Dumbledore made you Head Boy," she says quietly, and he nods.

"I know you don't think I deserve it," he says. "And I'm not sure I do either, but I think he just wanted to give me an…" He trails off.

"An opportunity," Lily finishes.

His face discloses surprise. "Yeah," he repeats quietly. "An opportunity."

They watch each other curiously, and Lily's heart feels suddenly so full that it's almost as if she can't breathe. She's glad they're here alone in this empty classroom, where no one can see what's happening on her face except for James. He's the only person she _wants_ to see her now, because she certainly feels like she sees him. All of him, all the ugly parts and the beautiful parts, too.

He saved Severus's life,Lily realizes. If not for James, Severus would be dead. If not for James, Remus Lupin would be an outcast. If not for James, Sirius would be a killer.

"James," she says finally.

"Hm?"

"Does Hestia know about all this?" She's unsure what makes her ask about Hestia except that she just wants to know that he's confided in her.

James's eyes widen. "Yeah," he breathes. "I told her last year. She's—"

"She's pretty good at keeping secrets," Lily finishes, remembering that Hestia never told anyone about her and Severus, even now.

"She keeping your secrets, Evans?" James says, smiling widely now.

Lily blushes deeply, dropping her eyes as James laughs across from her. "One day, I'll learn all your secrets, Lily Evans," he says, hopping down from the table. "Now let's test this potion."

"I'll never tell you anything else, Potter," Lily teases, picking up the dropper. "Now open up."

His face startles, and he leans way back. "I'm not drinking it! You drink it!"

"Why should _I_ have to take it? I did almost all the work," Lily protests. "You should take it."

"No way, Evans." He crosses his arms, and now all good humor has disappeared from his face, replaced by an obstinacy that looks so familiar to Lily that she almost bursts into giggles when she realizes she does the _exact_ same thing.

"Well, _I'm_ not taking it either." She imitates him, crossing her own arms, and they glare at one another now, each daring the other to protest again.

"I already told you a lot of truths tonight!" James is very nearly pouting.

"I didn't _ask_ you to!"

"Yeah, but—"

"You're completely barmy if you think I'm going to let you ask _me_ questions while I'm taking Veritaserum."

"Hang on!" James is fishing in his pockets again, and with a look of glee, he pulls out a coin. A small brass Knut sits in his palm.

"A coin toss?" Lily snorts.

"It's the only fair way," James says, holding his hand out to her. "You do the toss. I'll call."

Eyeing him suspiciously, Lily takes the coin. It's warm from his hand and—she feels a heat low in her belly—his pocket. Placing it carefully on her thumb, she looks at James as she flicks the coin into the air. It turns once, twice, three times before she closes her fist around it.

"Tails," James says immediately.

She slaps the coin on the back of her left hand and lifts her right hand. They both lean in and then—

"Yes!" James whoops, leaping back. "Get ready to spill it all, Evans!"

A wave of dread rushes over Lily as she drops her hand. The knut makes a _ping_ as it drops to the floor, unnoticed by either of them. James reaches around Lily, pulling the dropper of Veritaserum gently from her fingers. An anticipatory grin on his face, he raises the dropper upward.

"Wait, Potter," Lily says, raising her hand to brace it against his arm. "You can't ask me anything about Severus. Nothing."

He frowns, but nods. "Fine."

"Promise me," Lily demands.

He huffs, rolling his eyes. "I promise."

Their eyes meet, and with a small nod, Lily tilts her head back, parting her lips. James holds her shoulder lightly, and a thrill of anticipation rips through Lily. With a quick motion, he lets loose a drop into Lily's mouth.

It tastes like nothing, like cold, clear nothing, and as it slides down Lily's throat, it feels like nothing, too. She tilts her chin back down to meet James's expectant eyes.

"How do you feel?"

"Fine," she replies, her voice sounding hollow to her ears. "A bit weird."

"A bit weird?" James raises his eyebrows. He looks cute with his rumpled hair and his rolled up shirtsleeves and for some reason she even seems to find his crooked tie endearing. He always looks cute. She wonders if he'll ask her if she think he looks cute. Which he does. And then she'll have to tell him because she can only tell the truth. She hopes he doesn't ask.

"I think it's working," Lily says, and it's evident to her now how odd she sounds. Her voice is flat. Dull, even.

"How can you tell?"

"My mind is totally blank."

He laughs, then sobers quickly when Lily doesn't laugh along. Her mind _is_ totally blank. She feels nothing except a kind of lingering emptiness, a vastness that is somehow understandable and incomprehensible all at once.

"Okay, er, what's your name?" James asks.

"Lily Clementine Evans."

"Your middle name is _Clementine?"_ James guffaws.

"Yes. It was my grandmother's name."

"What house are you in?"

"Gryffindor."

"What's your favorite class?"

"Potions."

"Why?"

"It's like art. You have to feel it, sense it, and use your instincts to do it properly. You can be creative, but it also has structure."

James clears his throat. "What's your sister's name?"

"Petunia."

"And your mother's name?"

"Iris."

"All flowers," James comments.

"My father called us his little garden," Lily says, the words just pouring out. She can't stop it now, her mind completely and utterly blank, but the moment James asks a question, the answer floats to the top, like a leaf on water.

"Did you send me the journal you wrote?"

A miniscule flicker of panic splashes on Lily's brain, but she can't convey it no matter how hard she tries. "No," she hears herself say.

"Do you know who sent it to me?"

"No," she says again.

"Why didn't you tell me how you were feeling at the time?"

 _This wasn't part of it, Potter_ , her brain says, and she's surprised to find the blankness replaced with indignation. But when she opens her mouth to relay this, instead she hears her voice say, "Because you had a girlfriend. And because I was embarrassed."

"Embarrassed of what?"

"Embarrassed that I liked you."

There's a long silence as he considers her, and she stares blankly at him.

"Do you think Marlene really likes Sirius?"

Another flicker of panic, but her lips form the words. "Yes. She loves him."

James's eyes light up, and he looks overjoyed for a moment before he realizes what he's betrayed to Lily.

"Are you angry at me?" he asks.

"I'm always angry at you."

He laughs. "Why?"

"Because you're infuriating."

He laughs again, and even under the deep haze of the potion, she feels a ripple of pleasure at his amusement.

"How long is one drop supposed to last?"

"About twenty minutes. You have five minutes left," Lily intones.

"What else should I ask?"

"How the hell else should I know?" She's surprised to discover that she still can swear under the effects of the potion.

He clears his throat. "Alright, I've been dying to know this. Who did you write the third journal for?"

Humiliation ghosts through her, but she speaks anyway, the potion having loosened all her inhibitions. "Frank Longbottom."

" _Longbottom?"_ James repeats, disbelief all over his face. "Are you joking? You're joking, right?"

"I don't think I can really joke under Veritaserum," Lily drones.

"Why Longbottom?"

"He was Head Boy when I was a prefect," Lily replies flatly. "I liked his work ethic. I thought he was smart, and he paid attention to me in a way that didn't make me feel embarrassed. Not like how you paid attention to me, which felt humiliating at the time. It was different when he did. I felt like he saw me. I don't know if that makes sense."

"It does," James says quietly.

"But it's a secret," Lily says. "No one else knows. Not even him."

"Why didn't you tell him?"

"Because," she says, "the more people you let get close to you, the more it hurts when they leave you."

An outstretched silence envelops them, and then, all of a sudden, Lily feels completely normal again.

"What the fuck, Potter!" she says, hopping off the table now. "Why did you ask me about _that?"_

"You never said I couldn't ask about the journals," he says, a smirk on his lips. "Frank Longbottom, eh? Is _that_ why you want to be an Auror, Evans?" His tone is, for reasons unknown, mocking and unkind.

"No, of course not!" Lily says. "I didn't even know he was going to the Auror Academy until after I started fancying him, and—"

"It's alright, Evans," James says reassuringly. "I won't tell anyone your secret. Rest assured." He shakes his head, muttering, " _Bloody Longbottom."_

"What is with you?" Lily asks. "Did Longbottom find out your big secret too? Sirius nearly kill him, also? I thought you liked him—you certainly were quite matey when he was in school with us."

James shrugs. "He's not my mate anymore, that's for sure," he says, not meeting her eyes as his words spill forth. "I just don't see what you see in him. What _anyone_ sees in him, to be honest."

"The fact that he's not a great bullying prat helps," Lily says, scooping two potion vials into her bag, and labeling two others with their names, ready for their presentation next week. She shrugs. "And he's quite tall and fit."

"I've heard," James grumbles, taking the labeled vials from her and placing them carefully in a cabinet. He hovers at the potions station for a moment, and then turns. "I really think we'll get a perfect mark. No one else's potion is perfectly clear like ours."

"You know who else got a perfect mark on their Veritaserum project, don't you?" Lily says with a mischievous glint in her eye.

James groans. "Don't tell me it was—"

" _Longbottom!"_ they both say together, leaving the dungeon laughing.

* * *

As James predicted, they get a perfect mark on their project. Their presentation is flawless, each of them describing the steps they took to give their potion a crystal clear look and the most potent truth telling serum Professor Slughorn has ever seen. They volley back and forth, each picking up the thread where the other left off, finishing one another's sentences, and even making the class erupt with laughter a few times. Slughorn claps, giving them each admiring glances, and even Sirius can't help but look awestruck when Lily and James take their seats, grinning at each other.

Throughout the week, two by two, each of the pairs of seventh year students present their assignments, a rotating cast of teachers and Hogwarts staff taking drops of Veritaserum with varying degrees of success. Marlene and Mary's Veritaserum makes Professor Flitwick recite the entirety of his family tree. Sirius and Remus's brew inspired Professor Rial to share more than enough information about how she wanted to sing opera in Tehran before her parents moved to England. Even Professor Dumbledore joined them, retelling in part the story of his daring duel with the Dark Wizard Grindelwald.

Finally, on Friday, it's Severus's turn. He ambles to the front of the classroom with Damon Mulciber in tow. Severus clears his throat, shuffling a parchment in front of his black eyes, and starts reading monotonously from his essay.

Lily feels her attention drifting, her eyes flitting to James who is writing something rapidly on a piece of parchment. She watches as he blows on the parchment to dry the ink, and then folds it up into a teeny tiny triangle. With a maniacal glint in his eye, he gestures to her. _Catch it,_ he mouths, and she shakes her head, rolling her eyes toward Professor Slughorn and back. James shrugs, and with a quick flick of his fingers, the tiny triangle skitters across the surface of the table until Lily presses her palm on it, stopping its reckless path over the table's edge and onto the floor. She grasps it in her fist, turning her attention back to the front of the classroom, where Mulciber is now listlessly reading his portion of their essay.

" _Psst!"_ James hisses at Lily. Several pairs of eyes turn to look at the two of them, but Professor Slughorn is still focusing politely on Mulciber's dull voice. James waves everyone off, mouthing to Lily again. _Open it!_

With a small sigh, she furtively unfolds the note, feeling James's eyes on her. His handwriting is spiky and untidy, but it looks almost like he made an effort to neaten it up. The note is short, and as Lily reads it, her cheeks warm.

_You look really pretty today._

Her gaze flits up to meet his, and he's smiling at her. He gives her a supremely confident wink, running his hand through his hair, and Lily feels the back of her neck warm. She ducks her head, crumpling the note in her hand and slipping it into the pocket of her skirt. She shifts in her seat, looking anywhere but at James, and in her endeavor, she catches Hestia glaring at her.

 _It's an act,_ Lily reminds herself, averting her eyes from Hestia's furious eyeline. _It's all an act for her. You heard him in the prefect meeting room. He'll drop anything to be with her._

She refocuses her attention back to the front of the room, where Professor McGonagall is now seated on a stool, looking as stern as ever. Lily watches as she downs a drop of Veritaserum and Professor Slughorn turns the hourglass to time it.

"What is your full name?" Professor Slughorn asks McGonagall.

"Minerva Elspeth McGonagall," Professor McGonagall intones.

"And what do you do for your work?"

"I'm a professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I'm also the Deputy Headmistress there."

"Very good," Professor Slughorn remarks to Severus and Mulciber, writing something down on his clipboard.

"What's your Animagus form, Professor?" Severus asks, and Professor McGonagall blinks, turning her stern face toward Severus.

"A tabby cat," she replies. "With markings around the eyes like my spectacles."

"Why did you pick a tabby cat, Professor?" It's Mulciber's turn to ask a question now, and it's evident from his tone that he wants to humiliate Professor McGonagall.

"It was the most practical," their Transfiguration professor responds simply. "Both Muggles and Wizardkind will leave a cat alone, so I can go about my business."

From the corner of her eye, Lily can see Sirius nod slightly with a smirk on his face. She glances at him, and he catches her eyes, giving her a sly wink.

"What was your father's profession?" Slughorn asks now.

"He was a minister," McGonagall says, and at these words, the entire class titters as if she's said something salacious instead of the perfectly ordinary thing it was. "He was a Muggle."

Another titter, this one even more disruptive than the one before it. Lily spies Avery and a Slytherin girl miming retching under their table, and she feels a hot stream of anger pool in her stomach. Even Marlene and Sirius are exchanging significant glances. Who else knew that Professor McGonagall had a Muggle father? The din in the dungeon classroom begins to rise, like a kettle coming up to full boil.

"Now, now, children!" Slughorn calls. "Please let Misters Snape and Mulciber finish their questioning."

"They're finished now, Horace," Professor McGonagall replies abruptly. "The potion has worn off."

Severus pales, and Lily knows why. Behind him, the hourglass still has time left. The pale sand continues to trickle through the slender middle, and Lily realizes suddenly what this means. _She_ brewed a perfect Veritaserum. Severus Snape did not. Her heart leaps at her accomplishment, and she looks at James, who is beaming at her, every inch of his face glowing with pride. _We_ brewed a perfect Veritaserum, Lily corrects herself. _James and I._

"Well done anyway!" booms Slughorn. "Nearly perfect. You may go back to your seat, boys. Thank you for obliging, Professor."

"Very well done," Professor McGonagall says curtly to Severus and Mulciber, and she strides out of the room, her chin held high. Lily feels a surge of pride for Professor McGonagall, who is nothing if not wholly herself. The Gryffindor lion inside Lily roars approvingly.

Lily looks back at the hourglass, and the sand is almost nearly out. She catches Severus's eye as he returns stiffly to his seat, and his look is murderous. His jaw is set with anger and humiliation at his failure. Lily knows because she's seen this look on his surly face more than once, and as she tears her eyes back toward the front of the classroom, she can feel Severus's dark eyes trained on her.

When the bell rings, James bounds over to her. "Looks like we did the best after all!" he crows, swinging an arm around her shoulders and planting a kiss to her temple that feels like a searing brand. She resists the desire to touch where his lips were, and as they join their friends, he keeps his arm slung over her shoulder, a warm and comforting gesture that Lily is certain she'll miss when they do eventually have to end their charade.

"Hey!" a voice rings through the corridor. "Potter!" A prickle of unease creeps down her spine as she turns to see Severus striding toward them, looking more and more batlike than ever with his billowing black robes and his lank hair.

"Yes?" James says in a supremely casual tone that at one time would have annoyed Lily beyond words, but that she suddenly seems to find charming.

"You cheated," Severus spits out, his face a mask of rage.

"Sorry?" James says, cocking his ear toward Severus while tightening his arm around Lily's shoulder. Lily's heart thrums against her ribs as their classmates turn to see what's the big kerfuffle is. "Cheated at what?"

"At the Veritaserum project!" Severus retorts. "You sabotaged my potion!"

Behind her, Lily hears Sirius start to laugh, and a giggle escapes even Mary's lips as the absurdity of the situation begins to dawn on everyone. The throng of students stares avidly at James and Severus, snarling at one another like old times. Lily's gaze moves up to James's profile, and she can see a condescending smirk steal across his lips.

"How would I have done that, Snivellus?" James inquires nastily.

"All those nights in here working on your project gave you ample opportunity to tamper with everyone's projects," Snape shoots back. "How else can you explain you finally getting a perfect mark in a subject in which you have a long history of being so abjectly bad?"

James tilts his head in mock confusion, now dropping his arm from Lily's shoulders. "Hmm, I wonder how I could have pulled it off," he says in a mocking tone. "Maybe it's because I thought to partner with the best potions student in our year, Snape. That thought cross that thick skull of yours before accusing me of cheating?"

"Move along, Snivellus," Sirius suddenly booms from behind Lily, making her jump. "Don't _make_ me move you along."

Severus's face is twisted with rage as his eyes fly over James's shoulder to see all their friends assembled like chessmen. His eyes falter when he realizes he's outnumbered and as he takes a step back, Lily clears her throat.

"He couldn't have tampered with your potion," she says clearly, moderating her tone. "I was with him every time he was down here. We were together all the time."

But this only seems to enrage him even more. His eyes flash as he turns away, sweeping up the stairs to the entrance hall.

"Maybe you should have spent a few more nights down here working on your potion!" James calls to his retreating back, but he's gone, and the students in the corridor release a collective sigh of relief, starting to follow in Severus's wake.

"Hey, wait…" Lily says, hanging back, pulling at James's sleeve. "Wait a second."

James's eyes fill with curiosity as he lingers behind, gesturing to his mates to go on ahead. Once the corridor is nearly empty, Lily takes a deep breath and speaks. "Did you mess about with his potion?"

James's mouth hardens into a thin line. "Are you seriously asking me if I cheated?" His voice is tight, and Lily can feel that he's angry with her.

"Come on, Potter," she says, pleading. "I don't think you did, but you were here before me the night we tested the potion and—"

"I didn't, okay?" James snaps. "When are you going to trust me, Evans? What do I need to do?"

"I—" Lily pauses, peering up into his eyes. _He's hurt,_ she realizes. _I hurt him_. "I'm sorry," she relents.

His face betrays the surprise he feels at her apology as he takes a step back. "Evans, did you just…apologize to me?"

"Oh, come off it!" she sputters. "I've apologized to you before, Potter. The thing with your parents when we were on rounds…"

"I remember," he replies, a small smile playing about his lips. "It's one of my favorite memories. Along with this one."

Lily huffs. "James Potter, you insufferable twat!" she says crossly, sidestepping him and crossing the stone floor to make her way up the stairs. "I'm never being kind to you again!"

"It's just a nice change of pace!" he calls out, and for once, Lily agrees.


End file.
